Do you have an OCW story? Share it with us.
Students | Educators | Self Learners
Kunle Adejumo is finishing his fourth year of engineering studies at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria. By all rights, he should now be in his fifth and final year, but local strikes and instability in Nigeria have added almost a full year to his studies at Ahmadu Bello. Read more.
The city of Nasik has long been known as the wine capital of India for its plentiful supply of grapes, but more recently it has become a high-tech and engineering hub—one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Born and raised there, fifteen-year-old Tuhin Bagi shares his native city's fascination with science and technology, and maintains an equally breathless pace. Read more.
In between studying for classes and working at the MIT Computing Help Desk, MIT senior Clinton Blackburn volunteers as an ambassador for OCW during his travels to Africa. Read more.
A fifth-year civil engineering student at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, Maria Karamitsou spent the summer of 2005 working at an institute of seismology, studying earthquake-resistant construction techniques. Read more.
In his junior year at Klein Oak High School in Spring, Texas, Mat Peterson — now an MIT freshman — was struggling with his physics course. A friend of his recommended that he look at MIT OpenCourseWare, where Peterson turned to physics videos and found the help he needed. Read more.
Ahaan Rungta and his family moved from Calcutta, India, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 2001, the same year MIT announced OpenCourseWare (OCW), a bold plan to publish all of MIT’s course materials online and to share them with the world for free. Little did his parents realize at the time that their two-year-old son—already an avid reader—would eventually acquire his entire elementary and secondary education from OpenCourseWare and MITx, and would be admitted to the MIT class of 2019 at the age of 15. Read more.
On most counts, Jamie Tucker–Foltz is your average teenager. Hailing from Colorado, he’s into juggling (keeps five clubs in the air, and shooting for six), plays volleyball, likes to draw and paint, and enjoys building computer games using the MIT Media Lab-created Scratch programming tool. Academically, however, he’s facing a challenge that far fewer teenagers can claim to have achieved: “I’m a sophomore at Boulder High School, and basically, I’ve run out of classes.” Read more.
Richard Hall received a Ph.D. in computer science from LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, in 2002. Shortly thereafter, he found himself playing a different role in LaTrobe's laboratories and lecture halls: teaching courses in introductory information systems, beginning microprocessors, and advanced computer-aided software engineering. Read more.
Triatno Yudo Harjoko has a long and close association with the University of Indonesia in Depok, Indonesia. A graduate of the institution, Harjoko has also been a professor of architecture at the school since 1979, and is currently head of the architecture department. In addition, Harjoko has designed several of the university's buildings, including the expansive Faculty of Engineering complex, and the stunning University Mosque. Read more.
Shirley Harrell, an assistant professor in the School of Management at Cambridge College in Cambridge, MA, speaks with pride of the educational environment of her institution. As an open-enrollment school, she explains, Cambridge has "a gate at the end, not the beginning," and welcomes students from a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and abilities. Read more.
“The online courses I am augmenting my teaching with are very helpful. More content for less work helps me concentrate more on the teaching.” For the past several years, Evelyn Laurito has been using OCW materials in her classes. Read more.
A secondary school mathematics teacher in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Kian Wah Liew introduces his 18-year-old students to a range of complex concepts, such as matrices, determinants, and differential equations. Though his lessons are conducted in Mandarin, the students use an English textbook - which tends to make Liew's life more complicated, since his students possess a wide range of abilities in both English and mathematics. Read more.
Homeschooling her daughters means that Amy Santee knows how to think outside the box. She takes them on field trips and finds a wide variety of outside activities for them like ballet and choir. Her freedom to step outside the classroom keeps the lessons fresh and exciting. "I realize that not all learning is fun," says Santee. "But I strive to make as much as possible enjoyable and educational at the same time." Read more.
When Robert Talbert, associate professor of mathematics and computing science at Franklin College, was looking for inspiration and resources for his CMP 150 Computer Tools for Problem Solving course, he turned to MIT OpenCourseWare's 6.00 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming course, taught by Professors Eric Grimson and John Guttag. Read more.
“Bringing MIT into our University Prep classes has been incredible for my students, opening up their minds to the many possibilities, making them want to excel even more.” Demetra Tzevelekos describes her students’ experiences with OCW as very positive. Read more.
As director of Viruly Consulting – a leading South African real estate analysis firm – property economist François Viruly has acquired extensive experience in the South African commercial real estate market over the past decade. Viruly is passionate about his field, and makes an effort to share his expertise with students at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, as well as the University of Cape Town and the University of Pretoria. Read more.
Akwir Alain received his Bachelor’s in electrical engineering at the Université Libre des Pays des Grands Lacs (ULPGL) in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Besides facing the usual academic challenges of any engineering student, Alain was living in a war-torn country with few resources and few professors. Wondering if his education was on par with that of other engineering students around the world, Alain decided to do some research, and found OCW through Google. Read more.
After 11 years with the Air Force and multiple tours of duty in the Middle East, John (Jack) Berger has begun pursuing his dream career – designing video games – with the help of the OpenCourseWare class, 6.00SC Introduction to Computer Science and Programming. Read more.
A resident of Tijuana, Mexico, Juan Brizuela thanks OCW for enabling him to pursue a career in information technology.Read more.
Daryle Cardone is a naval aviator and the Commanding Officer to a squadron of early warning aircraft that operate from the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. Known as the Bluetails, Cardone's squadron consists of 150 pilots, ground crew and other personnel who support four E-2C Hawkeye aircraft. Read more.
“I used OCW to boost my knowledge of scientific concepts that I encounter daily at my job.” With these words, Valja Collingwood describes how using MIT’s OCW materials was helpful for his career. Read more.
As an expert in community development in South Carolina, Harry Crissy does much of his job on his feet. By combining his shoe-leather commitment to improving underserved areas with OCW courses in systems analysis, Crissy has helped entrepreneurs get projects off the ground and collaborated to transform a vacant building into a facility for a minority-based technical school's culinary program. Read more.
“I’m in a stage of life where I need to change some things and make up for lost time,” says 25-year-old Sean Cusack. While he enjoys professional success designing and rigging audio systems in the San Francisco area, Cusack recently decided to “catch up” on foundational ideas in his field to help him advance in his career. Read more.
Entrepreneurs Jean-Ronel Noel and Alex Georges are working to bring renewable energy to communities throughout Haiti. Through their company, Enersa they planned to create solar panels to serve the needs of their country, but in their research and development process, they required guidance in electrical engineering. Read more.
Ziya Deniz Eralp’s passion for learning has allowed him to comfortably straddle the worlds of both industry and academia, and eventually move from his native Turkey to the MIT campus. Read more.
A native of Kota, in Rajasthan, India, Ankit Khandelwal has been using OCW for the past seven years. “Whether it has been mixing chemical engineering (my core field of education) with other areas, or exploring new things in management, the OCW website has always provided good first-hand information.” Read more.
Harihar Subramanian is an applications engineer with the Bangalore design center of a California-based high technology start-up. He first learned of OCW as a student at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Since then, he has consulted OCW for information in a variety of areas such as business, physics, electronics, and essay writing. Read more.
Fifteen years ago [White] was diagnosed with a mental illness, and because he found it difficult to hold a job, now relies on government disability payments. But despite his economic and personal hardships, White says he “feels fortunate.” He has a home, internet access, and a daily date with OCW. Read more.
