A few weeks back, I finally got around to printing out certificates for the MOOC courses I’ve completed so far. I remembered having done this when I found this stack of certificates in a pile of papers on the couch in my office, now dog-eared and crinkled from having other stuff piled on top of […]
Signaling Learning
Well I hope everyone had a nice, long holiday weekend. I wish I could say I took all three days off from this project, but with two interviews scheduled for today (one with the Greek Heroes team, one with Dale Stephens of Uncollege), there was a certain amount of time set aside for prep (as […]
Independent Learners
One of the missions of this site is to help determine the nature of an independent learner, someone who can conceivably take advantage of MOOCs and other free-learning resources to do more than just take a course now and then. Not that informal continuing education isn’t an important aspect of free learning (in my interview […]
The MIT Challenge
Imagine my surprise when, a few weeks after launching this Degree of Freedom One Year BA project, people were reaching out to tell me I had to talk to Scott Young – a guy who apparently did the same thing a year ago. Given the newness of the MOOC phenomenon, and the limited number of […]
Uncollege
The notion of not going to college as a distinct vocation made headlines in 2010 when Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, announced the Thiel Fellowship: a program that would award twenty students a year $100,000 if they promised to bag college and instead focus on starting or developing a business or engaging in research or […]