10 ms·

MITx Opens First Course for Enrollment

196 points by ernestipark 15y ago

ernestipark 15y ago
6.002x Circuits and Electronics is the first class and is open for enrollment. The class will begin in March!
- taurussai 15y ago
  Pretty cool. Looking forward to the release of some CS classes
xiaomai 15y ago
As a college student, all these free online classes from MITx, Stanford, etc. are killing me. I really want to take them, but I don't have time for these and my regular school work (and full-time job).
- vegardx 15y ago
  Signed. I wish my university would just start using these courses instead of their own curriculum, as they tend to be highly outdated or even plain wrong.
  - tathagatadg 15y ago
    Couldn't agree more - I really want to spend more time taking such amazing courses FOR FREE rather paying humongous tuition differential and sit in a class where the course material is not challenging/thought provoking enough? Instead of offering separate certificates for courses, why don't they make this an open platform? Say I might be registered at a community college, and instead of choosing to register for "CSXX - Artificial Intelligence" I register for ai-class.com. ai-class/udacity/mitx validates my creds against my university's database and whatever grades I get in quizs, mid terms and finals are pushed from ai-class/udacity/mitx-s to my school's transcript generation system. If ai-class/udacity/mitx-s give an API - kids who maintain schools website should be able to integrate this within a semester. How this'll benefit the current status quo: For the students: Not everybody can go to Standford, MIT for various reasons - but to have a number of courses in your transcript from such prestigious institutions will open doors for him - not only intellectually but also professionally. When he registers for courses, at the beginning of the semester - the registration software shows him the current offering which is a Plain Old Lecture center class by an inhouse faculty and an online class from Prof. Ng. He decides whichever works for him - or may be register for both and see which one suits him and drops the other one. I strongly believe in the phrase "You become average of the 5 people you hang out with" - think if your classmates are as smart as people in hackernews. [Gawd - no curves in that case!] For Professors: They'll be disrupted. I mean, right now the challenge a professor faces is only when there is another professor in the same department offering the same course that same semester. So they tend to use the same slides from the book, same projects (this makes me mad) for generations really. The content is stale compared to what's out there in the real world. Obviously, students paying tuition would want value for their money and for many, going to a good school is gateway to a great job - only to find what he learned in class has been deprecated by industry standard. Students seeing more value in an online course would ditch the stale professors. Furthermore, many hotshot professors really don't give a shit about teaching - they really want to do research, but the department wants them to teach as there's no substitute for that course. If they adopt ai-class/udacity/mitx-s, burden on research profs can be lightened a bit. But bottom line, Professors have to be innovators to bring the students to his class. And if you really enjoy teaching like Prof. Walter Lewin - the world will be tuning in and you'll get paid too (read next point). For Universities: Oh you feudal system, you need to innovate to survive. Let me show you why this will make your profits soar: (1) by allowing students the flexibility to choose from you'll invite more clients (er, students) (2) Even if you can't afford superstar faculty like Prof. Thrun or Norvig, you can still pay udacity to use their course and get them in your portfolio. Think of the savings! (3) If you have superstar profs - you can do this too! Just allow other universities to use your courses and charge them for that! Then pay a cut to the professors for doing such a wonderful job.
- jcurbo 15y ago
  As a working professional AND a grad student, agreed. The page says you should expect to devote 10 hrs per week to the course. Sounds awesome but I just don't have that kind of time. I think this is a great program they have going though and maybe I'll be able to get in on some of the future classes.
- danneu 15y ago
  Yeah, I just graduated and I'm excited to finally have time to teach myself through programs like this. At my university, I would have had to officially change majors just to take this sort of course.
- Homunculiheaded 15y ago
  I would try seeing if you can wrap one into an independent study. At my local university a few grad students are trying this model: Everyone in a small group is taking either nlp-class,ml-class,or pgm-class. We give the others in the group an overview of what we're learning. To make this worthy of grad credits we're also reading and presenting papers during the semester, and each coming up with a project based on the material which should aim to yield publishable results. It's a little unfortunate that coursera is taking their time right now, but so far it looks to be promising, and hopefully we'll get a few paper out of it in the end.
paulitex 15y ago
"features interactive instruction, online laboratories and student-to-student and student-to-professor communication" Gerald Sussman is one of the professors (coauthor of SICP and father of Scheme). If the first statement is true, this is quite an opportunity.
- nessus42 15y ago
  I don't think that he's quite as inspiring to learn EE from as to learn CS from, though he's certainly an excellent teacher in any case. I'm kind of sad, however, that they cancelled the graduate-level sequel to SICP that he was going to teach this semester and that I was going to take. I had even paid my tuition of $7696 for the class (MIT ain't cheap!). I'm one of the first victims of MITx! I still think it's a great thing anyway.
- ja27 15y ago
  He and Agarwal seem like odd choices to teach this lower-level undergrad class. Maybe because it's so high-profile?
  - nessus42 15y ago
    I'm not sure I get you. At MIT it is encouraged for the most prestigious professors to teach even freshman level classes. In fact, Sussman and Ableson themselves taught 6.001 (SICP) when I took it as a first semester freshman. I was taught by all sorts of famous people all throughout my undergrad MIT education. The big names especially chose to do so when they were developing a new approach to teaching the material.
    - ja27 15y ago
      Ahh, ok. I'm not sure you get the more average university experience then. I spent 5 years at a fairly large research state university without ever having a class from the department head, despite the fact that his main focus was also AI. I've even had a few lower-level undergrad classes taught by under-qualified first year PhD students.
gabaix 15y ago
Big news for me is: MITx certificate. Last Fall Stanford took the initiative to organize live online classes. I took "Introduction of DB" and got a certificate from the professor. Some students complained that Stanford name was not on the certificate. Stanford apparently did not agree to distribute free certificates to online students. When you have a few CS students paying a high price to receive education, it's hard to give an official document for free. coursera.com was created by Stanford teachers who thought they would be better in a startup mode. What makes MIT initiative unique is that its certificates will be MIT branded ("MITx"). This is a winning strategy, as more people will turn to those classes. Some may continue by applying to MIT itself. It will also help MIT brand reach. Note those certificates will only be free for this pilot course. You can argue that having a certificate is something that matters or not vs actually learn something. I think a lot of people around the world will feel very proud to receive an official document that proved they know those skills.
- aseembehl 15y ago
  They are offering MITx certificate for free for this pilot course because, I quote from their website "In this prototype version, MITx will not require that you be tested in a testing center or otherwise have your identity certified in order to receive this certificate." As I see it, this certificate will be more or less of equal value as the Stanford online course certificates, since their is no way to ensure authenticity of the student. Their plan in (near)future is to charge a small fee and conduct tests at authorized testing centres(ETS centres for example) where ones identity can be confirmed. Since that way they can confirm that their is no foul play involved, the student will also be given course credits from MITx(Discussed here: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-faq-1219.html http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-faq-1219.html ). That for me is really exciting.
  - DilipJ 15y ago
    it really is. I only hope that eventually these credits will be recognized by employers. would they be be willing to hire someone who completes an entire curriculum successfully through MITx over someone who took a similar education at Big State U?
evoxed 15y ago
Does anyone know of any downsides to enrolling? Like others, I'm doing school/work full time already but I'm letting my curiosity get the better of me (enrolled on Udacity only so far). Is it wrong to assume that if you pass, you pass, if not you can just try again when you have the time (and it's being offered of course)? Edit: add MITx and some coursera courses as well... this semester's been gentle so far, why not liven it up?
- replax 15y ago
  I have this question as well. I read through the TOS, Honor Code and what have you but I did not find anything concerning re-enrolment/negative implications when not able to finish the course/drop out half way or be just really bad at it. I would really like to do it and could most likely also take the time to do so but for me there is a possibility of something more important coming up in the future resulting in me having to cut back on the curse. If something like: "If you want to enter the next course/a different one and your record shows that you began a course which you did not finish, then you have to do X/will be given a lower priority etc." applies, I would reconsider enrolling. Does anyone have any further information on that?
imrehg 15y ago
I'm so signed up :D There are so many offerings, even since I last made a little list of them for myself ( http://gergely.imreh.net/blog/2012/01/adventures-into-online-learning/ http://gergely.imreh.net/blog/2012/01/adventures-into-online... ) that it's incredible. Let's get down to knowledge...
sriram_sun 15y ago
I am looking forward to the labs. How are they going to give us remote students the much needed hands on experience? Anant Agarwal is an exceptionally good teacher as can be seen from the 6.002 ocw videos. Lots of energy and enthusiasm! This is wonderful!
- learc83 15y ago
  I'd assume with a circuit simulator.
keithvan 15y ago
I'm really excited for this -- I think MITx will continue where Stanford left off. Is this the disruption that will finally open a high-quality, reputable, higher education for the masses? It's going to be awesome to be a part of history with this course. :)
csomar 15y ago
I'm interested in CS, IT and Business. I'm also looking to see a rigorous test after the class. I'm ready to pay the equivalent cost of running the courses and taking the exams. This has a lot of value for someone thrown in a third world country with no financial possibility to join a decent University in the developed world.
harichinnan 15y ago
I come from India. We have the world's toughest entrance examinations to get to public funded courses. I got an engineering degree through one of those. However once I got through the admissions, I found the courses outdated. The professors got into colleges after bribing the managers and were sub-par in their teaching, the labs under-funded and there were frequent strikes at school for things like proper lodging. However the tough entrance exams meant that most of the students graduated and became successful self-taught professionals. I think something like Mitx, has the potential to become the single curriculum for the entire planet. Kids would be demanding this instead of the stale university offerings. Some of them pay ridiculous amounts of money for getting into private colleges without any merit scholarship. Check the below link. Mitx could become the university of alderaan for planet earth!!! Think about a million hungry Mitx grads a year getting through grueling MiT level coursework. That could take technology to unforeseen levels. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/University_of_Alderaan http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/University_of_Alderaan
hodder 15y ago
I look forward to the day independent learning is respected, and education quality can be decoupled from expense. I believe portfolios will become increasingly important in differentiatiing candidates in the future. As I take these courses, my goal will be to build up a strong enough github profile, and project list to get past any online course discrimination.
ctdonath 15y ago
The announcement notes "The book can be purchased on Amazon." Amazon notes "Only 17 left in stock--order soon (more on the way)." Such "free" courses will have a very interesting impact on book sales. ETA: Now 15.
- ctdonath 15y ago
  Now 7.
- camiller 15y ago
  The announcement also notes: "While recommended, the book is not required: relevant sections will be provided electronically..." Amazon now states ships in 1 to 3 weeks and 24 new from $80.00 / 29 used from $51.49 so it won't be hard to get a copy before coursework starts in March.
ekm2 15y ago
Honestly,i dont care about certification and employers.I just need the right knowledge to help me create my own stuff.

196 points by ernestipark 15y ago

ernestipark 15y ago

6.002x Circuits and Electronics is the first class and is open for enrollment. The class will begin in March!

taurussai 15y ago
Pretty cool. Looking forward to the release of some CS classes

xiaomai 15y ago

As a college student, all these free online classes from MITx, Stanford, etc. are killing me. I really want to take them, but I don't have time for these and my regular school work (and full-time job).

vegardx 15y ago
Signed. I wish my university would just start using these courses instead of their own curriculum, as they tend to be highly outdated or even plain wrong.
- tathagatadg 15y ago
  Couldn't agree more - I really want to spend more time taking such amazing courses FOR FREE rather paying humongous tuition differential and sit in a class where the course material is not challenging/thought provoking enough? Instead of offering separate certificates for courses, why don't they make this an open platform? Say I might be registered at a community college, and instead of choosing to register for "CSXX - Artificial Intelligence" I register for ai-class.com. ai-class/udacity/mitx validates my creds against my university's database and whatever grades I get in quizs, mid terms and finals are pushed from ai-class/udacity/mitx-s to my school's transcript generation system. If ai-class/udacity/mitx-s give an API - kids who maintain schools website should be able to integrate this within a semester. How this'll benefit the current status quo: For the students: Not everybody can go to Standford, MIT for various reasons - but to have a number of courses in your transcript from such prestigious institutions will open doors for him - not only intellectually but also professionally. When he registers for courses, at the beginning of the semester - the registration software shows him the current offering which is a Plain Old Lecture center class by an inhouse faculty and an online class from Prof. Ng. He decides whichever works for him - or may be register for both and see which one suits him and drops the other one. I strongly believe in the phrase "You become average of the 5 people you hang out with" - think if your classmates are as smart as people in hackernews. [Gawd - no curves in that case!] For Professors: They'll be disrupted. I mean, right now the challenge a professor faces is only when there is another professor in the same department offering the same course that same semester. So they tend to use the same slides from the book, same projects (this makes me mad) for generations really. The content is stale compared to what's out there in the real world. Obviously, students paying tuition would want value for their money and for many, going to a good school is gateway to a great job - only to find what he learned in class has been deprecated by industry standard. Students seeing more value in an online course would ditch the stale professors. Furthermore, many hotshot professors really don't give a shit about teaching - they really want to do research, but the department wants them to teach as there's no substitute for that course. If they adopt ai-class/udacity/mitx-s, burden on research profs can be lightened a bit. But bottom line, Professors have to be innovators to bring the students to his class. And if you really enjoy teaching like Prof. Walter Lewin - the world will be tuning in and you'll get paid too (read next point). For Universities: Oh you feudal system, you need to innovate to survive. Let me show you why this will make your profits soar: (1) by allowing students the flexibility to choose from you'll invite more clients (er, students) (2) Even if you can't afford superstar faculty like Prof. Thrun or Norvig, you can still pay udacity to use their course and get them in your portfolio. Think of the savings! (3) If you have superstar profs - you can do this too! Just allow other universities to use your courses and charge them for that! Then pay a cut to the professors for doing such a wonderful job.
jcurbo 15y ago
As a working professional AND a grad student, agreed. The page says you should expect to devote 10 hrs per week to the course. Sounds awesome but I just don't have that kind of time. I think this is a great program they have going though and maybe I'll be able to get in on some of the future classes.
danneu 15y ago
Yeah, I just graduated and I'm excited to finally have time to teach myself through programs like this. At my university, I would have had to officially change majors just to take this sort of course.
Homunculiheaded 15y ago
I would try seeing if you can wrap one into an independent study. At my local university a few grad students are trying this model: Everyone in a small group is taking either nlp-class,ml-class,or pgm-class. We give the others in the group an overview of what we're learning. To make this worthy of grad credits we're also reading and presenting papers during the semester, and each coming up with a project based on the material which should aim to yield publishable results. It's a little unfortunate that coursera is taking their time right now, but so far it looks to be promising, and hopefully we'll get a few paper out of it in the end.

paulitex 15y ago

"features interactive instruction, online laboratories and student-to-student and student-to-professor communication" Gerald Sussman is one of the professors (coauthor of SICP and father of Scheme). If the first statement is true, this is quite an opportunity.

nessus42 15y ago
I don't think that he's quite as inspiring to learn EE from as to learn CS from, though he's certainly an excellent teacher in any case. I'm kind of sad, however, that they cancelled the graduate-level sequel to SICP that he was going to teach this semester and that I was going to take. I had even paid my tuition of $7696 for the class (MIT ain't cheap!). I'm one of the first victims of MITx! I still think it's a great thing anyway.
ja27 15y ago
He and Agarwal seem like odd choices to teach this lower-level undergrad class. Maybe because it's so high-profile?
- nessus42 15y ago
  I'm not sure I get you. At MIT it is encouraged for the most prestigious professors to teach even freshman level classes. In fact, Sussman and Ableson themselves taught 6.001 (SICP) when I took it as a first semester freshman. I was taught by all sorts of famous people all throughout my undergrad MIT education. The big names especially chose to do so when they were developing a new approach to teaching the material.
  - ja27 15y ago
    Ahh, ok. I'm not sure you get the more average university experience then. I spent 5 years at a fairly large research state university without ever having a class from the department head, despite the fact that his main focus was also AI. I've even had a few lower-level undergrad classes taught by under-qualified first year PhD students.

gabaix 15y ago

Big news for me is: MITx certificate. Last Fall Stanford took the initiative to organize live online classes. I took "Introduction of DB" and got a certificate from the professor. Some students complained that Stanford name was not on the certificate. Stanford apparently did not agree to distribute free certificates to online students. When you have a few CS students paying a high price to receive education, it's hard to give an official document for free. coursera.com was created by Stanford teachers who thought they would be better in a startup mode. What makes MIT initiative unique is that its certificates will be MIT branded ("MITx"). This is a winning strategy, as more people will turn to those classes. Some may continue by applying to MIT itself. It will also help MIT brand reach. Note those certificates will only be free for this pilot course. You can argue that having a certificate is something that matters or not vs actually learn something. I think a lot of people around the world will feel very proud to receive an official document that proved they know those skills.

aseembehl 15y ago
They are offering MITx certificate for free for this pilot course because, I quote from their website "In this prototype version, MITx will not require that you be tested in a testing center or otherwise have your identity certified in order to receive this certificate." As I see it, this certificate will be more or less of equal value as the Stanford online course certificates, since their is no way to ensure authenticity of the student. Their plan in (near)future is to charge a small fee and conduct tests at authorized testing centres(ETS centres for example) where ones identity can be confirmed. Since that way they can confirm that their is no foul play involved, the student will also be given course credits from MITx(Discussed here: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-faq-1219.html http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-faq-1219.html ). That for me is really exciting.
- DilipJ 15y ago
  it really is. I only hope that eventually these credits will be recognized by employers. would they be be willing to hire someone who completes an entire curriculum successfully through MITx over someone who took a similar education at Big State U?

evoxed 15y ago

Does anyone know of any downsides to enrolling? Like others, I'm doing school/work full time already but I'm letting my curiosity get the better of me (enrolled on Udacity only so far). Is it wrong to assume that if you pass, you pass, if not you can just try again when you have the time (and it's being offered of course)? Edit: add MITx and some coursera courses as well... this semester's been gentle so far, why not liven it up?

replax 15y ago
I have this question as well. I read through the TOS, Honor Code and what have you but I did not find anything concerning re-enrolment/negative implications when not able to finish the course/drop out half way or be just really bad at it. I would really like to do it and could most likely also take the time to do so but for me there is a possibility of something more important coming up in the future resulting in me having to cut back on the curse. If something like: "If you want to enter the next course/a different one and your record shows that you began a course which you did not finish, then you have to do X/will be given a lower priority etc." applies, I would reconsider enrolling. Does anyone have any further information on that?

imrehg 15y ago

I'm so signed up :D There are so many offerings, even since I last made a little list of them for myself ( http://gergely.imreh.net/blog/2012/01/adventures-into-online-learning/ http://gergely.imreh.net/blog/2012/01/adventures-into-online... ) that it's incredible. Let's get down to knowledge...

sriram_sun 15y ago

I am looking forward to the labs. How are they going to give us remote students the much needed hands on experience? Anant Agarwal is an exceptionally good teacher as can be seen from the 6.002 ocw videos. Lots of energy and enthusiasm! This is wonderful!

learc83 15y ago
I'd assume with a circuit simulator.

keithvan 15y ago

I'm really excited for this -- I think MITx will continue where Stanford left off. Is this the disruption that will finally open a high-quality, reputable, higher education for the masses? It's going to be awesome to be a part of history with this course. :)

csomar 15y ago

I'm interested in CS, IT and Business. I'm also looking to see a rigorous test after the class. I'm ready to pay the equivalent cost of running the courses and taking the exams. This has a lot of value for someone thrown in a third world country with no financial possibility to join a decent University in the developed world.

harichinnan 15y ago

I come from India. We have the world's toughest entrance examinations to get to public funded courses. I got an engineering degree through one of those. However once I got through the admissions, I found the courses outdated. The professors got into colleges after bribing the managers and were sub-par in their teaching, the labs under-funded and there were frequent strikes at school for things like proper lodging. However the tough entrance exams meant that most of the students graduated and became successful self-taught professionals. I think something like Mitx, has the potential to become the single curriculum for the entire planet. Kids would be demanding this instead of the stale university offerings. Some of them pay ridiculous amounts of money for getting into private colleges without any merit scholarship. Check the below link. Mitx could become the university of alderaan for planet earth!!! Think about a million hungry Mitx grads a year getting through grueling MiT level coursework. That could take technology to unforeseen levels. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/University_of_Alderaan http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/University_of_Alderaan

hodder 15y ago

I look forward to the day independent learning is respected, and education quality can be decoupled from expense. I believe portfolios will become increasingly important in differentiatiing candidates in the future. As I take these courses, my goal will be to build up a strong enough github profile, and project list to get past any online course discrimination.

ctdonath 15y ago

The announcement notes "The book can be purchased on Amazon." Amazon notes "Only 17 left in stock--order soon (more on the way)." Such "free" courses will have a very interesting impact on book sales. ETA: Now 15.

ctdonath 15y ago
Now 7.
camiller 15y ago
The announcement also notes: "While recommended, the book is not required: relevant sections will be provided electronically..." Amazon now states ships in 1 to 3 weeks and 24 new from $80.00 / 29 used from $51.49 so it won't be hard to get a copy before coursework starts in March.

ekm2 15y ago

Honestly,i dont care about certification and employers.I just need the right knowledge to help me create my own stuff.