I’m quickly running down a web-search hole following up on my last post about alternatives to college. I’ve been thinking about this subject since the 1980s and even considered an alternative-to-college, though much lower tuitions and a pieced-together scholarship package let me go to the University of Georgia at very little cost. But I graduated 20 years ago next month, and it’s far more expensive now.
Rather than opine about what I’ve found, I’ll just list the resources. Some are about learning alternatives; some are about service alternatives.
- MIT OpenCourseWare Announces ‘OCW Scholar’ Aimed at Independent Learners
- National Coalition of Independent Scholars
- and their handbook (PDF)
- Wired: 7 Essential Skills You Didn’t Learn in College (Libraries and Transliteracy) [I’d add grant writing.]
- Volunteer Opportunities with Friends
- Open Courseware Consortium [Your head will explode with amazement. Note the Tufts participation.]
- Open textbook article (Wikipedia)
- The distance learning heavyweight: the University of South Africa. Also @unisa
Minor tangent: Transliteracy? I’ve encountered that discussion before. I am not fond of the jargony “let’s invent a new name for an amorphous practice” so someone can have something new to write about in library-land literature.