In case you’ve been watching too much YouTube and had started to think that intelligent online video was an oxymoron, Open Culture has an excellent collection of intelligent video resources that won’t rot your brain (sorry Hulu).

Some of the highlights include Academic Earth, which was covered on this site earlier, as well as ABC Documentaries and Fora.tv, a collection of lectures and debates from the world’s top universities.

The entire collection is really worth a look if you’d like to watch some internet video and learn something at the same time.

This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date collection of free online college classes available to the general public. We’ll be updating this list frequently, so please bookmark it for future reference and let us know about any broken links or free online courses we’ve missed. See also our collection of Free Language Learning Resources.

Table of Contents

1. General Collections
2. Math and Science
3. History
4. Arts and Humanities
5. Business and Economics

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The recently launched AcademicEarth.org is a video site that features full length lectures by professors at prestigious universities. Like rival video site BigThink, it shares the goal of spreading ideas and intellect around the web.

Although the amount of content on the site is still relatively low, in a few hours of exploration we were able to find many interesting talks on a wide range of subjects. For your learning enjoyment, here is the best of what we found:

Learning from and Responding to Financial Crisis

Who better to learn about the financial crisis from than Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary and one of Barack Obama’s top economic advisors.

See also: Part 2

Legacies of the Civil War

This course explores the causes, course, and consequences of the American Civil War, from the 1840s to 1877. The primary goal of the course is to understand the multiple meanings of a transforming event in American history. Read the rest of this entry »

Today the media is buzzing with the news of Bernard Madoff’s guilty plea to charges of orchestrating a ponzi scheme that stole over 50 billion dollars over a period of 20 years. Just as many university and college endowments were devastated by the stock market collapse and losses from toxic mortgage backed securities, colleges and universities did not escape Madoff related losses.

The Wall Street Journal has published a list of Madoff Victims that includes 3 academic institutions:

• Bard College, a New York university, lost $3,000,000 that was invested in Madoff’s fund through J. Ezra Merkin’s Ariel Fund without the school’s knowledge.
• Yeshiva University, a private jewish university in New York, lost $14.5 million. Although the university had “no direct investments” in Madoff’s firm, a portion of its endowment had been invested for 15 years with Ascot Partners, which had “substantially all its assets invested with Madoff.”
• New York University filed a lawsuit claiming J. Ezra Merkin turned over his investment responsibilities to Madoff’s funds and lost $24 million of the school’s money.

These losses will increase pressure to cut costs at the institutions involved. It remains to be seen how universities will cope with the massive losses to endowment funds, decreased state and federal funding, and decreased alumni donations due to economic hardship.

Choosing a college is an extremely difficult decision. There are so many different schools to pick from and it’s hard to learn much from university websites and information packets. The best way to get good advice is speaking with someone who’s attended the school themselves.

Getting Started

The first place you should turn to for college advice is your high school guidance counselor. One of their main responsibilities is helping students find the right college. They have tons of knowledge and experience in this area. You should set up a meeting with them before you start your college search so you can discuss what your goals and requirement are. They will probably be able to suggest some schools that are a good match and point you in the right direction.

Talking to Students and Alumni

After you narrow down your list of schools to a few that you are very interested in, you should try to go deeper and talk to someone who has attended the school. They’ll have the most up to date knowledge about what life is like at these colleges and will probably be more honest about shortcomings than the school’s admissions department.

Your guidance counselor might be able to put you in touch with current college students if they attended your high school. Ask them if they wouldn’t mind talking with you about the school on the phone some time.

Another good idea is finding alumni of the school. You parents, friends, and local community members might be able to help you find alumni in your area. You could also try calling the school directly and asking for referrals.

Visiting Colleges

Once you’re really interested in a school, it’s a good idea to visit it in person to get a feel for the campus and community. Many schools have programs that allow applicants to spend a night with current students inside the dorms to really get a feel for what life is like there. If know any current students, you could also ask to visit them, or you could go with your parents and spend time on campus and around town.

College is a major decision so it’s important to get information from a wide range of source before you make your decision. Getting good college advice from people with real experience at a school will help you pick the perfect college for you.

Ah government bailouts, they’ve brought us so many wonderful things. Economic hardship, grand standing politicians, floundering executives, and now a blow up from Uconn basketball coach Jim Calhoun.

After recording his 800th career win, Calhoun came under scrutiny during a press conference for his $1.6 million dollar salary. As the highest paid Connecticut state employee, a reporter asked, would Calhoun be willing the give any of it back?

Apparently not, and why should he? Calhoun didn’t run the state of Connecticut into debt. He didn’t destroy shareholder value. He didn’t mislead anyone. All he did was achieve remarkable success that merited a lucrative contract in the eyes of the university.

What this shows is the ridiculous populism brought on by hard economic times. Everyone with a high salary has a bullseye on their back. It’s true Calhoun could have been more graceful with his response, and perhaps he deserved a reprimand from the governor, but he is not a villain.

Now the question of coach compensation in college athletics is another issue entirely. At Open Education, Thomas says that Calhoun may be suffering from an overinflated ego. That may be true, but who inflated it? Who made college basketball so popular? Who bought the tickets to his games? Who watched them on TV?

It’s too easy to look at celebrities, athletes, and executives and say that they’re the problem. We created them. We could have spent our time on high minded pursuits, but we wanted to watch March Madness, or read the latest gossip, or spend more money on our credit cards.

The problem with America is us, and only way to fix it is changing the way we think and act.

When searching for the best learning tools online, you’ll find that they cater to one method of learning. It doesn’t take a genius to know that everyone’s learning styles differ. While some prefer visual aides, others learn best with written text or audio tools.

Have you ever had difficulty learning a new topic by reading dry text only to have an epiphany after seeing a picture or chart? Perhaps a professor has bombarded you with graphs and images which meant nothing until it was accompanied by reading material. By determining your learning style, you will become more efficient in understanding new concepts and retaining new information.

Finding Your Learning Style

Much like personality tests, there are surveys online that will help you discover a personalized way of learning. Barbara Solomon and Dr. Richard Felder of North Carolina State University created a 44-question survey that analyzes and defines a student’s learning style by asking the following questions:

• What type of information does the student prefer: sensory (sights and sounds) or intuitive (ideas and theories)?
• How is the information received: visual (pictures and demos) or verbal (written or spoken words)?
• How do they process information: actively (physical activity or discussion) or reflectively (thinking and introspection)?
• How does the student progress toward understanding: sequentially (progression of incremental steps) or globally (absorbing material randomly)?

It’s rare to lean toward one extreme over another; some of us are in between or have some combination of two or more styles. The trick is to get an idea of how you learn so that you can choose professors, learning tools and study habits that suit you. Instead of suffering through mundane pages of text or slideshows the next time you tackle a new subject, you can be more selective with what works best for your learning style. When you’re receptive to what you learn, your grades will improve and you might enjoy a subject that could have otherwise been bland.

Deciding where to attend a college is an extremely important decision. Not only does it affect the next 4 years of a student’s life, it also plays a major role in their career. This article will help students and their families pick the right college by highlighting some of the most important factors to consider.

Near or Far From Home

Moving from high school to college is a major social change. For most students, it’s the first time they are separated from family and friends and live entirely on their own. The impact of this change can vary greatly, depending on how far away from home they go to college.

For some students, leaving home to attend a distant college is a great experience. It allows them to join a new community independently. These students are forced to make many new friends and quickly adapt to their new environment. Students who attend college closer to home are more likely to retain the same social circle and a closer approximation of their old lives.

The downside of going to college far from home is that you leave behind the comfort and support of your family and friends. For those who aren’t up to building a new social life from scratch, or who feel frightened in new and strange environments, going to college far from home can lead to homesickness and a bad experience.

In the end, it all depends on the preferences of the student and his or her family. Would you feel comfortable being by yourself in a strange environment? Do you see college as an exciting chance to have new experiences? How much do you depend on your family for emotional support?

Of course, there is no right decision. There are many compromises between staying in your home town and moving cross country. Think about how much you value new experiences versus how much you need to be near home when making this decision.

Large or Small School

Another area that’s important to consider is the difference between large universities and small colleges. There are pros and cons to each.

Some of the benefits of large schools include:

• A large and robust social community
• Greater diversity of people to meet and interact with
• Larger scale campus activities (sports, student groups, etc)
• More areas of study to choose from

Some of the benefits of small schools include:

• More tightly knit community
• Closer interaction with professors and fellow students
• More group familiarity (everyone knows everyone)
• More focused academic programs

Many of these areas can be good or bad, depending on the preferences of the student. Some students prefer small colleges where they can know most of the other students and gain a certain level of trust and familiarity. Other students see this as a negative and get bored interacting the same small group for 4 years.

Cost and Affordability

Attending college is a major investment. With tuition for 4 years well above $100,000 at many top universities, cost is not something that should be taken lightly. How cost impacts a student’s decisions depends on the financial position of the student and his or her family. If the student’s family is able to comfortably pay for college, and is happy to do so, then the price of tuition might not be the biggest factor in the decision.

On the other hand, if the student is planning to pay for college themselves (by working or taking on students loans) cost becomes extremely important. Student debt is no small burden, and many students spend decades paying off their college loans.

Before taking out a major loan to pay for college, here are few things to consider:

• Do you plan on pursuing a major that will help you earn a lot of money?
• Are you comfortable being in debt for many years?
• Will the benefits of one college out weigh the extra cost?

If the answers to any of these questions are no, the student should strongly consider a more affordable alternative. Everyone wants to attend the most prestigious school, but for many students it does not make economic sense.

Areas of Study

A final area to consider when choosing a college are the specific academic programs offered by each school. If the student already has a good idea of what they want to study, they should research these departments at each college. Quality of education can vary widely between different departments at the same school, so it’s important to gather specific information. Some schools might be excellent overall, but have poor programs in the area most important to you. Others might not have the most prestigious reputation, but have top notch programs for certain subjects.

For students that are undecided about their course of study, it’s more important to find a college that has a wide variety of offerings and overall high level of academics. This will allow the student a broad range of equally good choices.

1. “You have four years to be irresponsible here. Relax. Work is for people with jobs. You’ll never remember class time, but you’ll remember time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So, stay out late. Go out on a Tuesday with your friends when you have a paper due Wednesday. Spend money you don’t have. Drink ’til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does…” ~Tom Petty
2. “College is like a fountain of knowledge – and the students are there to drink.” ~Unknown

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Click here if you’re looking for Walden University Online

The beauty of the public domain is that after an author’s death, his or her works eventually become freely available to the public. This allows websites like Project Gutenberg to index countless classic texts for people to read online or download.

This is an opportunity no enterprising mind can neglect. To help you find the best of the best, we’ve compiled a list of books that seek to uncover the nature of humanity. Happy reading!

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