OCW Stories

• Jamie Tucker–Foltz
• Student
• United States

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.

• Tuhin Bagi
• Student
• India

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.

• Robert Talbert
• Educator
• United States

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.

• Karen Willcox
• MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics professor
• United States

In her first year, Willcox was surprised and disappointed to find that many of her students' math skills were less proficient than she expected. She has been working ever since both to better understand this phenomenon and to counteract it. Read more.

• Harry Crissy
• Self Learner
• United States

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.

• Ziya Deniz Eralp
• Self Learner
• Turkey

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.

• Jon Gruber
• MIT Class of 1964 and OCW supporter
• United States

An enthusiasm for what's "cutting edge" in technology has molded Jon Gruber's life, and has now made its mark on MIT OpenCourseWare. Read more.

• Gene Sprouse
• MIT Class of 1963 and OCW supporter
• United States

Gene Sprouse always had a passion for science and physics. Originally encouraged by his high school physics teacher, Sprouse nurtured his enthusiasm for physics through college and graduate school. Read more.