List of 73 free online courses/MOOCs from Standford, Harvard, MIT, and others that you can start this month

Excellent list. I'm currently doing CS50 on EDX which is excellent and already completed Stanford CS144 which is great too. Looking forward to Databases.

Quote from krazymop : I teach HS AP Calc and I'm taking Prof. Ghrist's course on coursera. I'm always looking for novel ways to present the concepts to my classes.

Just a question. I have already passed Algebra 2 and should be taking Pre-Cal next. However I took Algebra 2 close to 2 years ago.

Should I take Algebra as a refresher course and then Pre-Cal? or should i jump in straight to Pre-Cal?

I love the attitude of some people toward free online college classes: "So I don't get credit?" I'll suggest that if your only purpose is to get credit, and not to learn, that go back to playing Angry Birds.

Quote from EdgarD : Just a question. I have already passed Algebra 2 and should be taking Pre-Cal next. However I took Algebra 2 close to 2 years ago. Should I take Algebra as a refresher course and then Pre-Cal? or should i jump in straight to Pre-Cal?

From what I recall, Calc is very different than Algebra. If you know Algebra basics very well, you'll have what you need for Calc.

Quote from vairox : just go buy a book about whatever and read it, none of these "classes" offer any credit, useless unless you can't afford a $10 book on any of these subjects.

You are dead wrong. Why it's true you don't get a credit these are much more than books. You get video lectures, quizzes, problem sets, you get to interact with fellow students, etc. Very useful if you're interested in a subject but not sure whether you should enroll somewhere and spend thousands of dollars just to find out it's not for you or if you want a good overview of a topic, need to take a refresher. And last but not least you can actually learn new things...

Good list! Just signed up for the Stanford database course.

Quote from scythen60 : I did the intro. to databases class with Jennifer Widom the first time it was offered in 2011. Applied to a few DBA jobs afterwards and got one. Still working there - the course was a great prep.

Great! I am planning to take this class this term. Can you recommend anything regarding this class?

Quote from sklar : Quote from mirai : It is Stanford, not Standford I guess someone missed a class.

Well, it's free, so maybe it is Standford!

I have mixed feelings about these free courses. If you have the free time and it's just for fun, then maybe it's right for you. But if you ultimately want to get somewhere with it, you may be better off taking the class at a relatively inexpensive jr. college to get transferable credit.

Quote from scythen60 : I did the intro. to databases class with Jennifer Widom the first time it was offered in 2011. Applied to a few DBA jobs afterwards and got one. Still working there - the course was a great prep.

Just signed up for this hoping to get a decent background on databases and SQL!

One question though... for these Stanford courses, do we have to take all the quizes/exams and do all the lessons on time or is it kind of like a go at your own pace course?

Quote from Parabolic : I'm guessing you're one of those "books are a waste of time" type people. Some of us enjoy the pursuit of knowledge, there doesn't have to be a monetary payoff.

I agree, Thank you!

Quote from KoGa : You are dead wrong. Why it's true you don't get a credit these are much more than books. You get video lectures, quizzes, problem sets, you get to interact with fellow students, etc. Very useful if you're interested in a subject but not sure whether you should enroll somewhere and spend thousands of dollars just to find out it's not for you or if you want a good overview of a topic, need to take a refresher. And last but not least you can actually learn new things...

That's wasting time, I do that and get credit for it. If I'm gonna give my time, I'm gonna get something back from it, yeah knowledge is "something" and maybe for your own personal self efficacy it's all good and great but it doesn't mean jack squat anywhere else... just the sad reality.

Great list, thanks for putting it together.

Anyone who thinks free knowledge isn't valuable probably doesn't collect much of it.

Thank you!!!!!! Please keep this thread up, it's great! I signed up for a few classes and started one tonight!

Quote from Cubeeless : Great! I am planning to take this class this term. Can you recommend anything regarding this class?

The forums and students are a great help. There is no reason that you should not be able to solve a problem (assuming you put in effort). In the real world there are many things that aren't even touched upon in this course; most namely: stored procedures. I believe the course picked some arbitrary software to run queries (database master pro?). I would recommend just getting SSMS + SQL server or mysql/postgres+navicat.

Also I remember there being a ton of nested queries or subqueries that were required to solve the logic in the harder problems. Running those complex queries are very rare in my case, mostly because they would take so long to run against a large dataset - and are harder to debug.

Oh, hrmm.... The XML/DTD stuff wasn't very helpful for what I do, but they added in the JSON section which sounds like a fantastic addition.

Thanks!