Yesterday, while browsing on the Net, I’ve stumbled upon the website of edX - The Future of Online Education.

edX offers free online courses from well known universties like MIT, Harvard University, University of California, Berkley, University of Texas System, Wellesley and Georgetown University.

While looking at the free courses at edX one grabbed my attention - MITx 6.00x: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming. Below follows a more detailed summary about the course itself, cited from the edX website:

“6.00x is an introduction to using computation to solve real problems. The course is aimed at students with little or no prior programming experience who have a desire (or at least a need) to understand computational approaches to problem solving. Some of the people taking the course will use it as a stepping stone to more advanced computer science courses, but for many, it will be their first and last computer science course.”

“Since the course will be the only formal computer science course many of the students take, we have chosen to focus on breadth rather than depth. The goal is to provide students with a brief introduction to many topics so they will have an idea of what is possible when they need to think about how to use computation to accomplish some goal later in their career. That said, it is not a “computation appreciation” course. It is a challenging and rigorous course in which the students spend a lot of time and effort learning to bend the computer to their will.”

“Those who earn a passing grade will get an honor code certificate from MITx. Please see the edX FAQ for more information about certificates.”

Fascinating, isn’t it? Wait, there’s even more - the course will teach you how to program in Python!

Not sure about you, but to me that sounds pretty appealing. And guess what, I’ve already signed up for the course which starts at February next year! :)

Check out the free courses at edX and take the course you like the most. I’ve already chosen mine! :)