How free online courses from MIT can “transform the future of the world”

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MIT OpenCourseWare’s YouTube channel inspires millions of learners across the globe to expand their knowledge and develop new skills for free.

From full introductory courses in engineering, psychology, and computer science to lectures about financial concepts, linguistics, and music, the MIT OpenCourseWare YouTube channel has it all — offering millions of learners around the world a pathway to develop new skills and broaden their knowledge base with free offerings from MIT educators.

“I believe OpenCourseWare and Open Learning resources will transform the future of the world for the better — in financial markets I know it already has,” says Michael Pilgreen, a sculptor, painter, and poet from Memphis, Tennessee, who discovered OpenCourseWare when he found himself unemployed in 2020 and used it to jumpstart a new career on Wall Street. 

After watching several lectures about finance, computer science, programming, mathematics, and algorithms on the OpenCourseWare YouTube channel and website, Pilgreen enrolled in the MITx MicroMasters program in finance. He is now a business operations specialist for the Jameel World Education Lab at MIT Open Learning, where he helps the lab bring MIT ideas and know-how to educational innovators worldwide. 

“MIT OpenCourseWare opens the doors to conversations that were previously closed to learners by geography, time, and class,” Pilgreen says. “As an open learner, I was able to leverage the best instructors in the world from my living room, and turn my time being unemployed into a productive period acquiring the skills I needed to work on Wall Street.”

OpenCourseWare is the brainchild of MIT faculty members. The platform was launched in 2001 when the age of digital sharing was just getting started, establishing MIT as the first higher education institution to make educational resources freely available to learners regardless of geographical location or institutional affiliation. Four years later in 2005, OpenCourseWare created a YouTube channel to further its commitment to accessibility and lifelong learning.

Today, OpenCourseWare — part of MIT Open Learning — remains a global model for open sharing in higher education, with an open license that allows the remix and reuse of its educational resources. OpenCourseWare offers materials on its website from more than 2,500 courses that span the MIT undergraduate and graduate curriculum. Educational resources include syllabi, lecture notes, problem sets, assignments, audiovisual content, and insights.  Read More