Thanks to a handful of prominent universities and their OCW offerings, you can get a little piece of a Harvard education (or Yale or MIT or dozens of other schools). Google OCW to find schools that are participating in the program.

OCW stands for Open Course Ware. A few years ago a group of schools joined a movement to help people get access to education. I know it isn’t the same as attending a university class, but in ways it might be better.

I attended a traditional well known university. It didn’t work. I attended a traditional tech school. It didn’t work. I attended “college” via online courses. It didn’t work.

I had very good SAT scores, was in the top whatever percent of my high school class, was accepted into a few public and private universities honors programs, etc. I can be a good student.

At times I can have the attention span of a gnat, I’m horribly stubborn when it comes who picks how I waste my time, I have trouble following through with things if I don’t see the merit in doing them and the prof can’t explain how it applies to a real world situation, etc. I can be a very bad student.

I know that I’ve gotten more out of a few of the classes I’ve watched/listened to via OCW than many of the classrooms I’ve sat in. Because I am only investing time in the classes (or in some cases just a few lectures from a class) I’m interested in, I am sure I pay more attention than I would be if it was just some class I was forced to take as a graduation requirement.

Of course, at the end of the class (or a 50 classes) I still don’t have an embossed and calligraphy covered paper to hang on the wall. The only part of that that bothers me is that it might bother potential employers.

If anyone cares, I’m currently browsing my way through Yale’s ECON 159 Game Theory class. I haven’t purchased the books yet. I might look into it though depending on how cheap I can find them…

Oh, and eventually I will compile a large list of links to all the OWC (and related) classes available online. After getting the list together, I’ll see what I can do about making it so you can search for subjects without having to head out and browse each university one by one.

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