Thursday, August 20, 2009

Autodidacts, Stand Up and Cheer!

For reasons unknown, but gratefully accepted, MIT has placed almost all of its curruculua on the Web.

Now, those folks that don't have the smarts - or the fat wallet! - for MIT can see what they're missing. Plus, those who live for self-study and self-improvement can follow along at their leisure!

While I have no solid idea why they did this, I have a glimmer of a possibility: whenever I can afford it, I'm going to give MIT $100 a month. Granted, $1200 a year isn't going to get my name on a building, but I can rest assured that the folks that set up MIT's OCW site aren't going to be moping in their offices after ten years, wondering if they "ever made a difference in the world".

As an online writer I read has also commented, this move will also start to show up all those other colleges, that wish they had the competence to stand in MIT's company.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to see what those smarties in MA are being taught, but without forking over the thousands to feed all of that ivy...