I've had a bit of a tricky go with adult education but I've recently come across a site offering free online college courses that are quite high quality and I wanted to share. Before you click away, this is not an ad or promotion and I've not been asked to talk about this company - I truly think they're a great resource worth sharing!
First, a long story made short about my past educational experiences, I took a year and a half of college courses around age 23. It wasn't for me. I didn't have a desire or a need for a degree. What a great way to create debt though, let me tell you! So, I left, before I racked up more bills that I'll never pay off.
However, I love learning. There are lots of ways to educate yourself and I am a fan of all of them. Reading fiction and non-fiction, watching educational videos and documentaries, listening to lectures from experts, or just trying something out to see what happens. I've been known to buy used college text books from the thrift store to read and take notes on as a "fun" past time. Looking at my shelves now they are free from textbooks but there are many instructional manuals on topics from math to natural remedies to log home building.
Over the years I've checked out a number of open online courses. If you're not familiar with the concept, an 'open course' is one that is open for free on the Internet to an unlimited amount of participants. They usually have traditional aspects like reading articles and watching videos as well as interactive quizzes, assignments and conversations.
FutureLearn is just one such open course catalog. What I have loved most about using it is that the design is incredibly user friendly and intuitive. Everything is incredibly well laid out and easy to find, there aren't an obnoxious downloads (that I've found anyway), and all the resources you need are well-integrated into easy to follow week-by-week courses. That seems like what you would expect from an online course but many of the other platforms I've tested out have been confusing, required lots of downloads or even buying outside course material - which to me defeats the point of a free course.
To be clear, FutureLearn does have an option in which you can pay for the classes you are taking in order to receive an official certificate at the end and work your way towards a degree. However, payment is not required to view or take part in any of the courses unless you want official proof of completion. I'm not sure at how many universities the credits can be transferred but I do know that one of the co-owner companies of FutureLearn is Open University which is the biggest university for UK undergraduate education so it seems to safe to say that at least with the UK and other parts of Europe they should be fairly easy to transfer.
The only thing that is limiting about the FutureLearn courses is that once you begin a course you are given only a certain amount of days to complete the course materials unless you pay the course fee. They break down each class based on the number of lessons into how many weeks it is expected to take you to complete. For example the 'Gender and Development' class I'm currently taking is broken up into lessons over a 2 week period. However, I am allowed a full month to complete the class. Does that make sense? Let me give another example. My 'Sustainable Futures' class is expected to take me 4 weeks to complete however the site has allowed me 2 months of free access to complete the 4 weeks of course material. So even if you choose not to pay for unlimited access and proof of completion you still get plenty of time to access and complete the course.
Really, that's about it. If you're interested in continuing your adult education go give the site a look. They have courses in a wide range of topics. There's no special link or sign-up code, no benefit to Zach and I if you choose to use this site or not.
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