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Not ready for school? 10 ways OCW can help
Feeling unprepared for the new semester? Here’s 10 ways you can use OCW to stay ahead of in the game in the upcomming school year:
1 ) Beef up your study skills - OCW sites offer a number of study skills courses, including this one from the University of Southern Queensland.
2 ) Pick that major - Yes you probably could get all the way through school undeclared, but OCW can help take the guesswork out of deciding what you really want to study. Courseware available through the OCW Consortium site can give you insight into what is actually studied in advanced courses for a wide range of majors.
3 ) Brush up on last year - Use the Consortium site to locate classes similar to those you took last year and convince this year’s professors that you actually remembered some of it.
4 ) Sharpen your writing skills - MIT OCW’s Rhetoric class is a great way to remind yourself of the basics of good expository writing, a skill that never goes out of style.
5 ) Compare notes – Not quite getting the discussion of polymers in your class? Go to OU UK’s OpenLearn for another explanation of the topic that might be more your style.
6 ) Make up missed lectures - Sleep though that early morning Chemistry lecture? Video and audio lectures like those offered by UC Berkeley can fill in the gaps.
7 ) Get that extra practice – Big test in that Economics course coming up? Many OCW sites, such as this Applicaitons of Game Theory course from MIT, contain a library of exams from past years and often include solutions. Others contain extensive lists of problem sets.
8 ) Flash back - In that upper level course you suddenly realize you really do need to use that inverse trigonomic function you didn’t quite learn last year. Fortunately, lecture notes like those on University of Tokyo’s site can help you go back in time.
9 ) Flash forward - Not getting why you need to know economics to design aircraft? Check out lectures on cost analysis for Aerospace Engineering.
10 ) Study cool stuff - Getting bored with the topics you’ve signed up for? Study Kitchen Chemistry, Avalanche and Snow Dynamics, Tropical Ecology and Conservation, or anything else that catches you eye, no registration required.
