In all likelihood, even if I had the roughly $36,000 for the full year’s tuition, I’d never be accepted to enroll at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  In operation for over 140 years, MIT ranks among the nation’s best and caters to some of the brightest, accepting only about thirteen percent of applicants.  The institute has been home to thirty-one winners of the National Medal of Science and sixty-two Nobel prize recipients, seven of which are members of the current faculty.  The faculty and staff also include six Fulbright Scholars, eighty Guggenheim Fellows, twenty MacArthur Fellows, and four winners of the Kyoto prize.  To say that the MIT faculty excel in science and technology is a bit of an understatement.  So, when I read that MIT has been offering its course materials for free, I took notice.

MIT Open Courseware is an ambitious project which aims to “provide free, searchable access to MIT’s course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world.” Currently, the site offers over 1,550 different courses in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Literature, History, Foreign Languages, Computer Sciences, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautics, Architecture, and the rest of MIT’s thirty-four departments.  The list is as extensive as it is impressive.  Each course offers syllabi, lectures, readings, assignments, discussions, exams, and miscellaneous other materials available online or for download in a single ZIP file.  The project started in 1999 and is expected to be completed, but continually updated, by next year.  When MIT says in their mission statement that they want to “best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century,” they mean it, and are well on their way.

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html