Not many people in the world have ever experienced calculus at MIT. No surprise there since you had to, well, get into MIT, which almost nobody does. But now you don't have to get in. You don't even have to apply. All you need a computer to experience calculus…MIT style. Here it is. 35 lectures, all free. No grades. No pressure. Just watch and learn for the fun of it (if calculus is your idea of fun).
Even if you don't like math, c'mon–that's pretty damn cool.
Academicearth.org features online lectures and full courses from colleges and universities. There are so many lectures available from the Stanford Business School that there's a good chance I won't get any work done for the next three-and-a-half weeks.
Look at some of the great classes you could take:
One of the most popular courses at Harvard is a philosophy course called "Justice: What's the right thing to do?" The professor examines difficult moral dilemmas and then challenges your opinion with new information, tackling subjects like affirmative action and-same sex marriage. Interested? Here it is. 12 lectures. You're taking one of the most popular classes at Harvard. Free.
Organic chemistry has dashed the pre-med hopes of countless students who just couldn't survive it. Why not test drive it at UC Berkeley? Here it is. 26 lectures, all free.
Are you a Civil War buff? Want to take a class at Yale that examines the causes and consequences of the American Civil War? Here they are. 27 lectures, all free.
Two things worth noticing here:
1. Now more than ever, you don't need a high GPA, perfect SAT scores or a lot of money to learn about subjects that interest you. Access to quality education is increasing all the time. Real learners don't have to go far, or pay a lot, to feed their minds.
2. Who's really more intellectual? The kid whose parents pay thousands of dollars to send him to a summer school session on an Ivy League campus? Or the kid who takes history classes at his local community college over the summer, checks out every book on the Civil War from the library, and watches free history lectures like the ones at academicearth.org?
Few qualities are more appealing to colleges than a genuine curiosity and interest in learning. There are more opportunities to demonstrate that trait now than there ever have been before.