I never imagined it would come to this but it brings me such delight to find out that the university where I earned my MBA degree, University of Pennsylvania, is one of several leading Ivy League schools in the U.S. that signed up with Coursera, a new venture that offers online classes for free. Yes…FREE!
So far, here is the list of top universities signed up with Coursera. Imagine, you can take a course from, let’s say, Stanford University, then take another course with John Hopkins or University of Michigan.
And here are the general course topics. Under each of these general categories are specific classes you can choose to take.
In their About Us page, the Coursera team describes themselves this way:
We are a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Our technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students.
Through this, we hope to give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few. We want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.
The methodology being employed by Coursera is adapted to today’s busy lifestyle. Unlike a classroom approach where you need to be physically away from your work and devote time to class work, the Coursera approach, which by the way, is developed and taught by world-class professors, allows you to learn at your own pace, taking into consideration that you can only study in bits of time. The lessons are designed in such a way that you can read and reread till you master the course material. Interactive exercises will test your knowledge as well as reinforce concepts. And, you can monitor your own progress so you know exactly when you are considered to have mastered the subject.
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