Education without college

[Enforcer Talen]

So, I'm not in college at the moment, but I wish to continue my education. I have the internet and a laptop, so I figure I can do at least a bit of research on my own. I'm interested in all topics, but as I only have an associates degree in lib-arts, I'm really starting at square one. My question to you is, what websites are good for learning when I have half an hour or an hour by myself? I started with the cracked.com articles, just to get my feet wet, and I'm now working my way through the TED archives. What other websites are good for self learning?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Some universities put lectures up on youtube actually.

[adam_grif]

From memory, some universities offer their course materials (lecture notes, recordings, etc) online for free. I believe Stanford does this for several courses.

[SCRawl]

This might sound like a dumb question, but what do you want to learn? General education is fine, but you'll probably want to focus on something in particular. Once you find that something, you'll want to do more than just watch videos or read text about it if you really want to learn that material.

[Broomstick]

So, I'm not in college at the moment, but I wish to continue my education. I have the internet and a laptop, so I figure I can do at least a bit of research on my own. I'm interested in all topics, but as I only have an associates degree in lib-arts, I'm really starting at square one. My question to you is, what websites are good for learning when I have half an hour or an hour by myself? I started with the cracked.com articles, just to get my feet wet, and I'm now working my way through the TED archives. What other websites are good for self learning?

I agree SCRawl - what do you want to learn? If you want to learn everything - where do you want to start?

While the internet is a wonderful thing DON'T neglect your old fashioned library. If you local library doesn't have a particular book then ask about an inter-library loan. Back when I was studying obscure areas of aviation I borrowed some books via inter-library loan - I asked for them by title and author. When they arrived it turned out they had been sent from the National Air and Space Museum, part of the Smithsonian. To my local library branch. For free. It's a wonderful resource, make use of it.

[Enforcer Talen]

Anthropology, memetics, psychology, philosophy. Mostly the human condition, but I enjoy almost anything. Itd be nice to learn calculus or linux, for example.

[Enforcer Talen]

I also find Stuarts/Wongs/Duchess' posts fascinating, although I have no background in it. Engineering, systems analysis, etc.

[Broomstick]

Pick a topic. "Assign" it to yourself. Work on it for 3-4 months, then move to another one. But since this is self-study you can be flexible about such things.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Some universities put lectures up on youtube actually.

Some don't put them up on youtube per se, but there's another site that allows you to access side-by-side video recordings of lectures along with mostly real-time slides of the lecture notes that one of my profs uses for his early-morning class. Guess who hasn't been seen in person at that lecture since the first one?

[Dave]

It'd be nice to learn [...] linux, for example.

Best way to start learning Linux would be to install it and use it. Ubuntu is a very good place to start.

After that, it's a broad topic. Like others have asked, what do you want to learn? Desktop system administration? Server administration? Security? Programming? Packaging? Etc etc.

I'm not trying to scare you off -- it really can be fun and easy. But saying you want to "learn Linux" is kind of like saying you want to "learn about computers". What did you want to learn?

[Spoonist]

http://www.openculture.com/2007/02/university_vide.html

http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/podcasts

[Archaic`]

Quite a lot of universities have been putting up lectures for free on iTunes as well.
http://open.edu/itunes/

[Gil Hamilton]

Don't neglect your local community college as well. I largely did the general education part of my college out of pocket because community colleges are really cheap and will generally give you a good start in figuring yourself out. If you find yourself with free time, you can always take some classes in any of the subjects you mentioned.

[Teebs]

Does the US have an equivalent to the UK's Open University? It's a perfectly respectable university that works mainly through distance learning and is aimed at adults who aren't able to take on a full time university degree.

[phongn]

Try OpenCourseware - several universities put up extensive course material on a wide variety of topics. Some may also include lecture videos, assignments and exams.

Does the US have an equivalent to the UK's Open University? It's a perfectly respectable university that works mainly through distance learning and is aimed at adults who aren't able to take on a full time university degree.

Many universities and colleges ofter distance learning programs.

[adam_grif]

Khan Academy.

Total lifesaver for me when doing my Games Physics assignments. The course had no maths or physics prerequisites... but they forgot to tell the professor who was planning the course content that.

[Maj]

A note on library use: If you feel obligated to be online, ask whether or not your library make eBooks available for checkout. There's some really great stuff out there.

When it comes to personal education, though, I would choose a goal when it comes to subject matter. Even if the goal is posting a thread here where you write down the most interesting things you learn each day/week/chapter/essay/etm, doing something that puts what you learn to some sort of use helps solidify those neural firings and makes the info stick.

[Enforcer Talen]

Thank you everyone, this thread has been tremendously helpful. Ive worked my way through some philosophy classes, and have added a ton of links from here.

[madd0ct0r]

Even if the goal is posting a thread here where you write down the most interesting things you learn each day/week/chapter/essay/etm, doing something that puts what you learn to some sort of use helps solidify those neural firings and makes the info stick.

I'd second this, project logs (be it building a boat, painting a space marine, exploring a concept or learning to cook) are a very good way to stay motivated.

Just knowing that there are a few people watching what you're doing helps keep you on track. Writing out a couple of A4 pages a week will help it stick for you, and also provides a nice little resource for the next person who's looking at that subject.

I'd refer you to mine, but that's just shameless.

More links: http://www.theschooloflife.com/
and I'm very surprised nobody has mentioned Wikipedia yet.

Especially for the non-controversial subjects (maths) it can be a brilliant primer, and leads on to many more interesting places.