This Year, Everyone is an Ivy Leaguer

August 24, 2009 3:00 pm     Posted in Cool Stuff  Brianna-Fordham University g+ page

studying in bed


By Brianna

So some of you may be a little bitter this school year. Instead of heading off to your dream school, you are stuck attending your fall-back as your friends suddenly turn all intellectual and boast about the awesome classes at Harvard, Princeton and NYU.

But little do they know, you’re getting the much better deal. While they rack up the student loans, you can enjoy the intellectually stimulating lectures of Ivy League professors without even having to get out of bed.

Two new websites, academicearth.org and openculture.com, are offering videos of lectures from top universities and – prepare yourself – they are totally free! Both websites are organized by topic and by school, offering courses from Berkeley, Harvard and Yale, among others. Want to see how a Princeton professor teaches Bio? Go for it! Want a motivating lecture on poly-sci? They have that too!

Ah, don’t you love living in the era of technology?

Finally all of us “average” people (i.e. those of us who couldn’t score a 2400 on our SATS or find the time to volunteer at eight different organizations during high school) can bask in the glory of partying it up at our party schools while we cyber “sit in on” the smarty-pants classes. If only we could print out that Harvard diploma, too.

6 Comments on "This Year, Everyone is an Ivy Leaguer"

  1. Ness - Sheridan says:
    Mon, 24th Aug 200911:22 am 

    I love this! Totally going to check out those sites.

    Thanks for the article :)

  2. Mary, Madonna Univer says:
    Mon, 24th Aug 200911:37 am 

    Thank you for posting this! I am totally gonna check these out in btwn study sessions this semester :)

    xoxo

  3. Sandra says:
    Mon, 24th Aug 20092:57 pm 

    An ivy league degree doesn't really count for shit unless you go into finance or the usual doctor, lawyer etc. Unless you want to work at Goldman, or one of the big finanical companies, getting a degree in Russian Literature or some other bullshit from Harvard doesn't mean jackshit when it comes to your salary when you graduate.

  4. Matt says:
    Mon, 24th Aug 20093:57 pm 

    Just a quick glance also showed some of these resources and lectures available in the iTunesU section of the iTunes (still free, but downloadable)

  5. valkyrie9 says:
    Sat, 5th Sep 20098:51 pm 

    Yeah, Sandra, people don't ever apply for non-"professional" grad school programs where they might be interested in looking where you went for undergrad as a gauge of what kind of an education you got.

    Salary isn't the motivating factor for everyone. You go to college to get an education, and there's a clear difference in the education you get between going to a top university (not necessarily Harvard, but a pretty good one) and going to a fourth-tier school.

    This is coming from someone who doesn't go to the Ivy League, but goes to a very good music conservatory and is sick of hearing from people that I may as well have just gone to a community college because I'm not going to make any money in music. First of all, because of what I'm studying, yes I am going to make money, but second of all, my goal is more about getting a Ph.D. and getting the undergrad education that will make that easiest for me. It's much easier to get into the grad school of your choice if you have your foot in the door by going to a top school, than it is if you're at Dipshit East-Central State Community College.

  6. Mar says:
    Tue, 6th Oct 200910:07 am 

    "I'm really bitter because I don't go to an ivy league school and make myself feel better about it by judging those who do."

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