5 ms·

Free unexpected MIT courses to kick start the new year

130 points by Anon84 3y ago

edweis 3y ago
I live the compilation. Do you have more of it ?
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  As the post notes, these are additions to MIT's longstanding OpenCourseWare project. https://ocw.mit.edu/search/ https://ocw.mit.edu/search/
- hoc 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
happytiger 3y ago
I wish one could get credit for these classes? They’re awesome but it would be more awesome if you could earn towards a degree.
- PunchTornado 3y ago
  Why would you need it? How would you pass exams? Who would pay for a teacher reading your exam and ensure you don't teach.. etc.
- mathgeek 3y ago
  You can, but the catch is getting accepted to MIT first.
  - voisin 3y ago
    And the tuition and time out of the workforce, which puts it out of reach for many, many people.
    - mathgeek 3y ago
      I'm pretty sure getting accepted to MIT also puts it out of reach for many, many people.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  That’s called going to college. You can however earn certificates for courses through services such as EdX: https://www.edx.org/school/mitx https://www.edx.org/school/mitx Although it appears as though you need the “Certified” premium status to achieve certification, which is almost $200USD.
  - ekianjo 3y ago
    > That’s called going to college. And thats too expensive for most people. Which is funny because knowledge is mostly free.
    - a_bonobo 3y ago
      Knowledge is free; the time of people pushing the knowledge into you is not free. (Self-taught in my eyes usually means 'i've picked out the things that interest me and then learned those' - it's the job of the the paid people to force you to learn the things that don't directly interest you)
    - chongli 3y ago
      Going to college is only nominally about acquiring knowledge. In reality it’s about acquiring a credential. All of the gatekeeping involved in admissions and examinations is to protect the value of the credential. The reason MOOC certificates are largely worthless as a credential is because there are NO safeguards against cheating.
      - gumby 3y ago
        There’s a lot more to an MIT education than the credential. I won’t argue that the credential isn’t useful in that certain people are more willing to consider taking you seriously the first time they meet you (foot in the door), but people with that credential do still fail. And seriously, when does where you went to school even come up, except on a resume (that “foot in the door”)
        tjpnz 3y ago
- _uoud 3y ago
  In Finland this is commonplace with ”open university” courses which are just the typical unis offering single ECTS credit courses for a small fee or for free. They are fully fledged courses though. See for example: https://fitech.io/en/ https://fitech.io/en/ or https://www.mooc.fi/en/ https://www.mooc.fi/en/ It’s no MIT, but they can count towards an eventual completion of a degree, and if completed with good grades, after 20-40 credits or so you can get admitted directly into a full-time program without any entrance exams or such.
  - happytiger 3y ago
    That’s amazing. Thanks for letting us know how it should be done. Hope US Universities are taking notes.
- credit_guy 3y ago
  These are not quite serious classes, they are fun experiments. They have a bit of educational value, but it looks to me the professors just put them together just for kicks. If you want to take MIT classes for credit, you can go to EdX. https://www.edx.org/school/mitx https://www.edx.org/school/mitx?
  - kragen 3y ago
    many mit opencourseware classes are serious classes, not just fun experiments
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- foooobaba 3y ago
  If you are willing to pay, some of the courses and programs like micro masters, micro bachelors on edx can count for credit, which is not necessarily cheap, but may be cheaper than it otherwise might be [1], also see [2] as example. All though even then, it may be cheaper to just enroll in some local or online classes at a community college in your state for a couple hundred dollars. [1] https://support.edx.org/hc/en-us/articles/206501438-Can-I-receive-college-credit-or-credit-hours-for-my-course-%20%0A https://support.edx.org/hc/en-us/articles/206501438-Can-I-re... [2] https://www.edx.org/masters/micromasters/purduex-nano-science-technology?webview=false&campaign=Nanoscience+and+Technology&source=edx&product_category=micromasters&placement_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.edx.org%2Fmasters%2Fmicromasters https://www.edx.org/masters/micromasters/purduex-nano-scienc...
aquafox 3y ago
I took Eric Landers "Introduction to Biology" course before transitioning into bioinformatics (https://www.edx.org/learn/biology/massachusetts-institute-of-technology-introduction-to-biology-the-secret-of-life https://www.edx.org/learn/biology/massachusetts-institute-of...). Can highly recomment this course, although it's a little outdated now.
123pie123 3y ago
the MIT courses, especially the Math stuff, are extremely useful for younger people (eg A levels in the UK)
d3w4s9 3y ago
I have been "taking" the MIT 6.824 (6.5840) distributed systems course, and the course is insanely good. (it is not in this article because this is a very advanced CS course.) You can get all the lectures including guest lectures on Youtube, you get labs with TEST SUITES, you get all the Q&As, you get exam questions AND answers. All for FREE. Perhaps the only thing missing from what an enrolled student would get is TA answering questions and discussing with other students or working on projects (and of course MIT credits), which is not too important for me. As someone without a CS background, the course is extremely helpful in getting into dist system. All the material except video is hosted on their website. No registration or anything. You run the test suites locally to verify that you correctly completed the assignments. It makes you wonder what happened to Coursera, Udacity and many other MOOC projects that were very optimistic and enthusiastic but got worse and disappointing in recent years. This is how it should be done.
- skrueger 3y ago
  I want to know if you want to meet up occasionally to discuss/work on the course and the labs? (i.e., be the "other students" you mention.) I was thinking about starting the the Spring 2024 6.5840 course just this past week. I ran across the course on YouTube while studying Raft and Zoo Keeper. I saw their labs and they have you build RAFT and a KV store on top of RAFT. I'd love to get the experience of building these. I have never written golang, but I am sure I could ramp up on it quickly. How far along are you?
- ghaff 3y ago
  Well, MIT--or probably more precisely individual MIT faculty members and other staff--can do more or less what they want to within reason without woryying about making money.. The MOOC bubble on the other hand (including edX to a certain degree) was both a novelty and depended on rethinking educational economics to a fair degree, which included credentials actually meaning something and that never really happened. The people taking MOOCs mostly weren't those not well-served by traditional higher ed; it was people who already had a Masters degree or two.
- paxys 3y ago
  All of those platforms were VC funded, and when the VCs demanded their 10x returns they in turn started to squeeze their users and the whole thing collapsed.
fiftyacorn 3y ago
I think ill do the beatles one

130 points by Anon84 3y ago

edweis 3y ago

I live the compilation. Do you have more of it ?

thaumasiotes 3y ago
As the post notes, these are additions to MIT's longstanding OpenCourseWare project. https://ocw.mit.edu/search/ https://ocw.mit.edu/search/
hoc 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

happytiger 3y ago

I wish one could get credit for these classes? They’re awesome but it would be more awesome if you could earn towards a degree.

PunchTornado 3y ago
Why would you need it? How would you pass exams? Who would pay for a teacher reading your exam and ensure you don't teach.. etc.
mathgeek 3y ago
You can, but the catch is getting accepted to MIT first.
- voisin 3y ago
  And the tuition and time out of the workforce, which puts it out of reach for many, many people.
  - mathgeek 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure getting accepted to MIT also puts it out of reach for many, many people.
tourmalinetaco 3y ago
That’s called going to college. You can however earn certificates for courses through services such as EdX: https://www.edx.org/school/mitx https://www.edx.org/school/mitx Although it appears as though you need the “Certified” premium status to achieve certification, which is almost $200USD.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  > That’s called going to college. And thats too expensive for most people. Which is funny because knowledge is mostly free.
  - a_bonobo 3y ago
    Knowledge is free; the time of people pushing the knowledge into you is not free. (Self-taught in my eyes usually means 'i've picked out the things that interest me and then learned those' - it's the job of the the paid people to force you to learn the things that don't directly interest you)
  - chongli 3y ago
    Going to college is only nominally about acquiring knowledge. In reality it’s about acquiring a credential. All of the gatekeeping involved in admissions and examinations is to protect the value of the credential. The reason MOOC certificates are largely worthless as a credential is because there are NO safeguards against cheating.
    - gumby 3y ago
      There’s a lot more to an MIT education than the credential. I won’t argue that the credential isn’t useful in that certain people are more willing to consider taking you seriously the first time they meet you (foot in the door), but people with that credential do still fail. And seriously, when does where you went to school even come up, except on a resume (that “foot in the door”)
      - tjpnz 3y ago
_uoud 3y ago
In Finland this is commonplace with ”open university” courses which are just the typical unis offering single ECTS credit courses for a small fee or for free. They are fully fledged courses though. See for example: https://fitech.io/en/ https://fitech.io/en/ or https://www.mooc.fi/en/ https://www.mooc.fi/en/ It’s no MIT, but they can count towards an eventual completion of a degree, and if completed with good grades, after 20-40 credits or so you can get admitted directly into a full-time program without any entrance exams or such.
- happytiger 3y ago
  That’s amazing. Thanks for letting us know how it should be done. Hope US Universities are taking notes.
credit_guy 3y ago
These are not quite serious classes, they are fun experiments. They have a bit of educational value, but it looks to me the professors just put them together just for kicks. If you want to take MIT classes for credit, you can go to EdX. https://www.edx.org/school/mitx https://www.edx.org/school/mitx?
- kragen 3y ago
  many mit opencourseware classes are serious classes, not just fun experiments
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
foooobaba 3y ago
If you are willing to pay, some of the courses and programs like micro masters, micro bachelors on edx can count for credit, which is not necessarily cheap, but may be cheaper than it otherwise might be [1], also see [2] as example. All though even then, it may be cheaper to just enroll in some local or online classes at a community college in your state for a couple hundred dollars. [1] https://support.edx.org/hc/en-us/articles/206501438-Can-I-receive-college-credit-or-credit-hours-for-my-course-%20%0A https://support.edx.org/hc/en-us/articles/206501438-Can-I-re... [2] https://www.edx.org/masters/micromasters/purduex-nano-science-technology?webview=false&campaign=Nanoscience+and+Technology&source=edx&product_category=micromasters&placement_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.edx.org%2Fmasters%2Fmicromasters https://www.edx.org/masters/micromasters/purduex-nano-scienc...

aquafox 3y ago

I took Eric Landers "Introduction to Biology" course before transitioning into bioinformatics (https://www.edx.org/learn/biology/massachusetts-institute-of-technology-introduction-to-biology-the-secret-of-life https://www.edx.org/learn/biology/massachusetts-institute-of...). Can highly recomment this course, although it's a little outdated now.

123pie123 3y ago

the MIT courses, especially the Math stuff, are extremely useful for younger people (eg A levels in the UK)

d3w4s9 3y ago

I have been "taking" the MIT 6.824 (6.5840) distributed systems course, and the course is insanely good. (it is not in this article because this is a very advanced CS course.) You can get all the lectures including guest lectures on Youtube, you get labs with TEST SUITES, you get all the Q&As, you get exam questions AND answers. All for FREE. Perhaps the only thing missing from what an enrolled student would get is TA answering questions and discussing with other students or working on projects (and of course MIT credits), which is not too important for me. As someone without a CS background, the course is extremely helpful in getting into dist system. All the material except video is hosted on their website. No registration or anything. You run the test suites locally to verify that you correctly completed the assignments. It makes you wonder what happened to Coursera, Udacity and many other MOOC projects that were very optimistic and enthusiastic but got worse and disappointing in recent years. This is how it should be done.

skrueger 3y ago
I want to know if you want to meet up occasionally to discuss/work on the course and the labs? (i.e., be the "other students" you mention.) I was thinking about starting the the Spring 2024 6.5840 course just this past week. I ran across the course on YouTube while studying Raft and Zoo Keeper. I saw their labs and they have you build RAFT and a KV store on top of RAFT. I'd love to get the experience of building these. I have never written golang, but I am sure I could ramp up on it quickly. How far along are you?
ghaff 3y ago
Well, MIT--or probably more precisely individual MIT faculty members and other staff--can do more or less what they want to within reason without woryying about making money.. The MOOC bubble on the other hand (including edX to a certain degree) was both a novelty and depended on rethinking educational economics to a fair degree, which included credentials actually meaning something and that never really happened. The people taking MOOCs mostly weren't those not well-served by traditional higher ed; it was people who already had a Masters degree or two.
paxys 3y ago
All of those platforms were VC funded, and when the VCs demanded their 10x returns they in turn started to squeeze their users and the whole thing collapsed.

fiftyacorn 3y ago

I think ill do the beatles one