• Hi, I am the owner and main administrator of Styleforum. If you find the forum useful and fun, please help support it by buying through the posted links on the forum. Our main, very popular sales thread, where the latest and best sales are listed, are posted HERE

    Purchases made through some of our links earns a commission for the forum and allows us to do the work of maintaining and improving it. Finally, thanks for being a part of this community. We realize that there are many choices today on the internet, and we have all of you to thank for making Styleforum the foremost destination for discussions of menswear.
  • This site contains affiliate links for which Styleforum may be compensated.
  • We would like to welcome House of Huntington as an official Affiliate Vendor. Shop past season Drake's, Nigel Cabourn, Private White V.C. and other menswear luxury brands at exceptional prices below retail. Please visit the Houise of Huntington thread and welcome them to the forum.

  • STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.

    Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.

    Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!

    Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

MOOC's

BDC2823

Distinguished Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2007
Messages
4,263
Reaction score
44
What are your opinions on these?

If you don't know what they are, they're rather interesting. I've been on Coursera for about a year or so. Basically, they are free online college courses. You sign up, take a course on whatever you want from stupid crap to high end mathematics/quantum physics/whatever. Initially, I thought it was kinda dumb and would be watered down crap. But since I've taken a few courses, I can say that it's quite the opposite. Basically, universities have signed up and offer online courses for anyone to take. One course I took had over 100,000 people signed up. It depends on the professor, but there are weekly quizzes and/or exams that are graded (MC) and if you score a passing grade you get a certificate. You can decide if that means anything. But from my experiences, this is what I've figured out:

If you want to actually take the course and get a certificate the classes aren't just a cakewalk. The schools involved aren't some crap no name schools. The courses are taught by professors at schools such as Harvard, Princeton, Wharton, Stanford, etc. So the schools and professors have a reputation to uphold. There are a few courses that have already been accredited universally so if you're a college student, you can pass the course and those credits apply towards your degree wherever you're at. I've done 3 courses and am taking a class from Wharton right now. The classes I took:

Think Again: How to Reason and Argue - Duke University - I thought this was going to be just some simple course that I may learn a few things pertaining to debating a position. Boy was I wrong. I spent hours each week watching the lectures and dissecting every single word, premise, and conclusion pertaining to the most basic to complex of arguments. It was not what I expected. Very in depth analysis. If I were to compare it to classes I took in college, it'd be one of the more difficult and time consuming classes.

Fundamentals of Personal Financial Planning - UC Irvine - I'm probably not the best person to evaluate this class as my degree is in Finance. But I wanted to take it anyways because I didn't have the opportunity to take a personal finance class. I'd also spent years researching this myself so I had a clear advantage and understanding. I didn't really learn much from it, but I also went to school for this so it is to be expected being a basic course. For those without my background there probably was something to learn, but I do think it could have been more in depth. A decent intro course, but not challenging.

Game Theory - Stanford - Tough as ****. Not easy by any means. Hours of study each week to run mathematical models to understand the information. I found it very amusing, but not a course someone could breeze through and gain something from. A large time commitment and thorough analysis is needed. Very difficult.

Overall perception: I initially thought these classes would be basic classes that just cover overviews of the issue at hand. Basically 101 classes but even less in depth. I was wrong. With so many people taking them, they can't incorporate case analysis and other methods so from that standpoint, you can't get what you'd get in a real college environment. Everything has to be MC exams for obvious reasons. But as far as the classes are concerned, they were on par with what I took in college. I spent more time on certain classes than I did on certain classes in college. I got proved wrong. They're pretty legit. From what I can tell, these classes are pretty much on par with what you would expect taking them at their respective colleges. it makes sense though, since the Universities and professors are putting their reputations on the line.

I love it as I can take classes on stuff I didn't have the opportunity to take in college, and can take refresher courses if need be at my leisure.

Has anyone taken any of these classes and what do you think?

All in all, I think it's a winning proposition and it looks like universities think the same way judging by how many of the top universities are signing up and offering classes.
 

NakedYoga

Distinguished Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
3,037
Reaction score
4,796
Sounds pretty interesting. Do you have to watch the lectures, etc. live, or can you do things at your own pace? I'm a lawyer, and it's pretty much impossible for me to effectively set aside a specific block of time on any given day for something like this.
 

BDC2823

Distinguished Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2007
Messages
4,263
Reaction score
44

Sounds pretty interesting. Do you have to watch the lectures, etc. live, or can you do things at your own pace? I'm a lawyer, and it's pretty much impossible for me to effectively set aside a specific block of time on any given day for something like this.


There are deadlines, but it's set up so that you can do everything at entirely your own pace. The lectures are all video lectures that you can watch right on the website or download.

Something you can do to is just sign up for the class, download all the videos and materials, and in the future pick and choose what videos you want to watch.
 

i10casual

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 8, 2009
Messages
678
Reaction score
29
I see some things I'd like sign up for. Are the textbook downloads pretty safe, from viruses I mean. Thank for the post.
 

Douglas

Stupid ass member
Spamminator Moderator
Joined
Aug 17, 2007
Messages
14,243
Reaction score
2,166
Oh. MOOCs. I came here looking for moobs.
 

BDC2823

Distinguished Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2007
Messages
4,263
Reaction score
44

I see some things I'd like sign up for. Are the textbook downloads pretty safe, from viruses I mean. Thank for the post.


I've never had any issues. I'd think they'd want to be extra careful considering there are classes with over 100k people and that'd be bad for business and the university.
 

Featured Sponsor

How important is full vs half canvas to you for heavier sport jackets?

  • Definitely full canvas only

    Votes: 55 35.5%
  • Half canvas is fine

    Votes: 60 38.7%
  • Really don't care

    Votes: 17 11.0%
  • Depends on fabric

    Votes: 27 17.4%
  • Depends on price

    Votes: 28 18.1%

Forum statistics

Threads
505,163
Messages
10,579,122
Members
223,886
Latest member
kimwishart8
Top