Free University courses

faith1985 · #11 03-23-2013, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Bon Jovi

None of the course I've signed up for have said any of the books are mandatory (one of them even lets you read the relevant chapters for free online) and they can **** off if they think I'm going to be buying any.

The one thing I really don't like about university education is that it's supposed to broaden your mind and give you a holistic education experience but when you get there what you actually get in a lot of courses is: buy this book, read these chapters, do exam on these chapters.

We got seriously stung with it when I did my PGDE. Every single one of the 3 textbooks we "had" to buy was edited or written by one of the senior lecturers and they were all full of total shit.

Check my last post, I've signed up for the rock history course. We can compare notes and plagiarize from each other

yeah, that is often a problem with some teachers or lecturers, they think the world evolves around their subjects and think that their opinion is the only one that counts.

We could form a online study group the rock history class

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Roxannah

ok, want to hear something really odd

a friend of mine is starting her PHD in South Korea come October and is here for a couple of weeks before she heads back to London, where she lives. i went to pick her up for dinner, she was super late. why? she had just been doing an assignment for one of the courses on this site! she was telling me all about it over dinner, how she's done a bunch of them already, how she thinks these will be super useful for her CV and how things generally work. it's really odd that she was telling me all this just this past weekend and i now find a thread about it here

learning is one of biggest pleasures in life for me, i want to know everything and about everything, so obviously i checked the site when i got home. i wanted to enroll is so many courses but i tried keeping it realistic as i probably wouldn't have the time for it all. i've decided to start with something light to have a better grasp on how things work. and i picked.... History of Rock

shame it only starts in May though, i wanted to start right away!

my friend also recommended this other site

https://www.canvas.net

but Coursera seemed better overall.

That sounds odd, indeed

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What I fear is that if these "extra efforts" become mandatory in a few years from now, it helps to make the economy more complex than it already is. To get a job you don't just need to have awesome grades, great internships, volunteer work and speak 20 languages you also need to do extra course work like this.

But in my case I can really say I did everything I have in my CV because I wanted to do it for myself and like you said, learning is one of my biggest pleasures in life as well

and I need to not subscribe to too many courses. Rock history is a great place to start, though.

Jim Bon Jovi · #12 03-23-2013, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by faith1985

What I fear is that if these "extra efforts" become mandatory in a few years from now, it helps to make the economy more complex than it already is. To get a job you don't just need to have awesome grades, great internships, volunteer work and speak 20 languages you also need to do extra course work like this.

To an extent, they're already necessary in a lot of cases. When I was at school we did some sort of course thing where the seniors went along to Glasgow Uni for a few evening sessions in order to earn some sort of credit. This was to help kids from schools in bad areas but the school i currently teach in which whilst not mega affluent, still performs well and recently had an inspection that was rated outstanding has a similar set up where all of the kids wanting to go to uni have to do extra modules to get some sort of accreditation.

It's quite frightening to think how bad things are for the kids just now.

I had a bunch of Advanced Higher pupils stressed out of their heads last year. I pointed out to them that AH's are really difficult, not everyone gets them and if they fail or don't get a fantastic grade, it's not the end of the world.

I then found out in the ensuing conversation that universities have upped their minimum requirements to the point that you really want AH's to give yourself a good chance at getting in. One girl was wanting to do the exact same undergrad that I did in the same university and I found out that with my school qualifications (2 A's and 2 B's at Higher), I'd no long meet the minimum requirements to get in. And I'm teaching this stuff!!!

Jim Bon Jovi · #13 03-23-2013, 05:51 PM

Study group sounds cool.

If anyone goes for the social psychology course get in touch too as you're supposed to try and organise small study groups.

faith1985 · #14 03-23-2013, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Bon Jovi

To an extent, they're already necessary in a lot of cases. When I was at school we did some sort of course thing where the seniors went along to Glasgow Uni for a few evening sessions in order to earn some sort of credit. This was to help kids from schools in bad areas but the school i currently teach in which whilst not mega affluent, still performs well and recently had an inspection that was rated outstanding has a similar set up where all of the kids wanting to go to uni have to do extra modules to get some sort of accreditation.

It's quite frightening to think how bad things are for the kids just now.

I had a bunch of Advanced Higher pupils stressed out of their heads last year. I pointed out to them that AH's are really difficult, not everyone gets them and if they fail or don't get a fantastic grade, it's not the end of the world.

I then found out in the ensuing conversation that universities have upped their minimum requirements to the point that you really want AH's to give yourself a good chance at getting in. One girl was wanting to do the exact same undergrad that I did in the same university and I found out that with my school qualifications (2 A's and 2 B's at Higher), I'd no long meet the minimum requirements to get in. And I'm teaching this stuff!!!

Wow, that is bad. They should rather examine social skills instead of grades for teachers! and I mean A's and B's is pretty great. At one point (and I think it already is) it comes to a grade inflation. At my uni, people who did the more "artistic" major (we had culture studies) where almost everybody got an A, because it is hard enough to get a job, similar in linguistics.
Here in Germany we have a numerus clausus for many degree programs but not necessarily an entering exam for getting into Uni.

I signed up for Social Psychology but don't know if I'll have the time in a few months from now.

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