So over the past year, I have read articles about various start-ups offering college-level courses from top colleges like MIT, Princeton, Standford, etc. I’ve looked at Udacity and Khan’s Academy and then I came across this article in Fast Company about a new service, Coursera. Recently, I had been thinking of taking classes after work, maybe a foreign language course or a programming course or literature course — just wanted something that would challenge me differently from the day to day job duties.

But actually enrolling in a class and having to physically go there after work or on the weekend just seemed terribly difficult to me: taking the time off to go get my ID, or attend the open house, or register and pay in person if they are picky about that, and then there is the issue of making sure I leave work on time to make it to class and doing the homework and studying for the tests.  And the cost of these classes! (I’m sure my firm will not pay for literature or language or most tech classes since my job isn’t really in those areas.) Well, maybe these are all excuses I’m making to avoid taking a class for real, even though I keep saying that’s what I want to do.

In the end, I decided that I should at least sign up for one of these free online courses and see if I can stick to that. I’m going to give coursera a shot and will write more about it in the future!