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OpenCourseWare Stories

Stories from the OpenCourseWare community reflect the profound impact of sharing knowledge and the transformative power of open education.

Martina Solano Soto

Martina Solano Soto

High School Student
Spain
The 17-year-old student from Spain uses MIT resources to deepen her understanding of math and physics. Lauren Rebecca Thacker | MIT Open Learning Martina Solano Soto is on a mission to pursue her passion for physics and, ultimately, to solve big problems. Since she was a kid, she has had a lot of questions: Why do animals exist? What are we doing here? Why don’t we know more about the Big Bang? And she has been determined to find answers. “That’s why I found MIT OpenCourseWare,” says Solano, of Girona, Spain. “When I was 14, I started to browse and wanted to find information that was reliable, dynamic, and updated. I found MIT resources by chance, and it’s one of the biggest things that has happened to me.” In addition to OpenCourseWare, which offers free, online, open educational resources from more than 2,500 courses that span the MIT undergraduate and graduate curriculum, Solano also took advantage of the MIT Open Learning Library. Part of MIT Open Learning, the library offers free courses and invites people to learn at their own pace while receiving immediate feedback through interactive content and exercises. Solano, who is now 17, has studied quantum physics via OpenCourseWare — also part of MIT Open Learning — and she has taken Open Learning Library courses on electricity and magnetism, calculus, quantum computation, and kinematics. She even created her own syllabus, complete with homework, to ensure she stayed on track and kept her goals in mind. Those goals include studying math and physics as an undergraduate. She also hopes to study general relativity and quantum mechanics at the doctoral level. “I really want to unify them to find a theory of quantum gravity,” she says. “I want to spend all my life studying and learning.” Solano was particularly motivated by Barton Zwiebach, professor of physics, whose courses Quantum Physics I and Quantum Physics II are available on MIT OpenCourseWare. She took advantage of all of the resources that were provided: video lectures, assignments, lecture notes, and exams. “I was fascinated by the way he explained. I just understood everything, and it was amazing,” she says. “Then, I learned about his book, ‘A First Course in String Theory,’ and it was because of him that I learned about black holes and gravity. I’m extremely grateful.” While Solano gives much credit to the variety and quality of Open Learning resources, she also stresses the importance of being organized. As a high school student, she has things other than string theory on her mind: her school, extracurriculars, friends, and family. For anyone in a similar position, she recommends “figuring out what you’re most interested in and how you can take advantage of the flexibility of Open Learning resources. Is there a half-hour before bed to watch a video, or some time on the weekend to read lecture notes? If you figure out how to make it work for you, it is definitely worth the effort.” “If you do that, you are going to grow academically and personally,” Solano says. “When you go to school, you will feel more confident.” And Solano is not slowing down. She plans to continue using Open Learning resources, this time turning her attention to graduate-level courses, all in service of her curiosity and drive for knowledge. “When I was younger, I read the book ‘The God Equation,’ by Michio Kaku, which explains quantum gravity theory. Something inside me awoke,” she recalls. “I really want to know what happens at the center of a black hole, and how we unify quantum mechanics, black holes, and general relativity. I decided that I want to invest my life in this.” She is well on her way. Last summer, Solano applied for and received a scholarship to study particle physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. This summer, she’s applying for opportunities to study the cosmos. All of this, she says, is only possible thanks to what she has learned with MIT Open Learning resources. “The applications ask you to explain what you like about physics, and thanks to MIT, I’m able to express that,” Solano says. “I’m able to go for these scholarships and really fight for what I dream.” Read the Original Article published on MIT News
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Sujood Eldouma

Sujood Eldouma

Student
Sudan
Turning adversity into opportunity How a love for math and access to MIT Open Learning’s online learning resources helped a Sudanese learner pursue a career in data science. Carolyn Tiernan | MIT Open Learning Sujood Eldouma always knew she loved math; she just didn’t know how to use it for good in the world. But after a personal and educational journey that took her from Sudan to Cairo to London, all while leveraging MIT Open Learning’s online educational resources, she finally knows the answer: data science. An early love of data Eldouma grew up in Omdurman, Sudan, with her parents and siblings. She always had an affinity for STEM subjects, and at the University of Khartoum she majored in electrical and electronic engineering with a focus in control and instrumentation engineering. In her second year at university, Eldouma struggled with her first coding courses in C++ and C#, which are general-purpose programming languages. When a teaching assistant introduced Eldouma and her classmates to MIT OpenCourseWare for additional support, she promptly worked through OpenCourseWare’s C++ and C courses in tandem with her in-person classes. This began Eldouma’s ongoing connection with the open educational resources available through MIT Open Learning. OpenCourseWare, part of MIT Open Learning, offers a free collection of materials from thousands of MIT courses, spanning the entire curriculum. To date, Eldouma has explored over 20 OpenCourseWare courses, and she says it is a resource she returns to regularly. Sujood from Sudan: An Open Learner’s Story Video: MIT OpenCourseWare. Listen to the interview here. “We started watching the videos and reading the materials, and it made our lives easier,” says Eldouma. “I took many OpenCourseWare courses in parallel with my classes throughout my undergrad, because we still did the same material. OpenCourseWare courses are structured differently and have different resources and textbooks, but at the end of the day it’s the same content.” For her graduation thesis, Eldouma did a project on disaster response and management in complex contexts, because at the time, Sudan was suffering from heavy floods and the country had limited resources to respond. “That’s when I realized I really love data, and I wanted to explore that more,” she says. While Eldouma loves math, she always wanted to find ways to use it for good. Through the early exposure to data science and statistical methods at her university, she saw how data science leverages math for real-world impact. After graduation, she took a job at the DAL Group, the largest Sudanese conglomerate, where she helped to incorporate data science and new technologies to automate processes within the company. When civil war erupted in Sudan in April 2023, life as Eldouma knew it was turned upside down, and her family was forced to make the difficult choice to relocate to Egypt. Purpose in adversity Soon after relocating to Egypt, Eldouma lost her job and found herself struggling to find purpose in the life circumstances she had been handed. Due to visa restrictions, challenges getting right-to-work permits, and a complicated employment market in Egypt, she was also unable to find a new job. “I was sort of in a depressive episode, because of all that was happening,” she reflects. “It just hit me that I lost everything that I know, everything that I love. I’m in a new country. I need to start from scratch.” Around this time, a friend who knew Eldouma was curious about data science sent her the link to apply to the MIT Emerging Talent Certificate in Data and Computer Science. With less than 24 hours before the application deadline, Eldouma hit “Submit.” Finding community and joy through learning Part of MIT Open Learning, MIT Emerging Talent at the MIT Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL) develops global education programs that target the needs of talented individuals from challenging economic and social circumstances by equipping them with the knowledge and tools to advance their education and careers. The Certificate in Computer and Data Science is a year-long online learning program that follows an agile continuous education model. It incorporates computer science and data analysis coursework from MITx, professional skill building, experiential learning, apprenticeship options, and opportunities for networking with MIT’s global community. The program is targeted toward refugees, migrants, and first-generation low-income students from historically marginalized backgrounds and underserved communities worldwide. Although Eldouma had used data science in her role at the DAL Group, she was happy to have a proper introduction to the field and to find joy in learning again. She also found community, support, and inspiration from her classmates who were connected to each other not just by their academic pursuits, but by their shared life challenges. The cohort of 100 students stayed in close contact through the program, both for casual conversation and for group work. “In the final step of the Emerging Talent program, learners apply their computer and data knowledge in an experiential learning opportunity,” says Megan Mitchell, associate director for Pathways for Talent and acting director of J-WEL. “The experiential learning opportunity takes the form of an internship, apprenticeship, or an independent or collaborative project, and allows students to apply their knowledge in real-world settings and build practical skills.” Determined to apply her newly acquired knowledge in a meaningful way, Eldouma and fellow displaced Sudanese classmates designed a project to help solve a problem in their home country. The group identified access to education as a major problem facing Sudanese people, with schooling disrupted due to the conflict. Focusing on the higher education audience, the group partnered with community platform Nas Al Sudan to create a centralized database where students can search for scholarships and other opportunities to continue their education. Eldouma completed the MIT Emerging Talent program in June 2024 with a clear vision to pursue a career in data science, and the confidence to achieve that goal. In fact, she had already taken the steps to get there: halfway through the certificate program, she applied and was accepted to the MITx MicroMasters program in Statistics and Data Science at Open Learning and the London School of Economics (LSE) Masters of Science in Data Science. In January 2024, Eldouma started the MicroMasters program with 12 of her Emerging Talent peers. While the MIT Emerging Talent program is focused on undergraduate-level, introductory computer and data science material, the MicroMasters program in Statistics and Data Science is graduate-level learning. MicroMasters programs are a series of courses that provide deep learning in a specific career field, and learners that successfully earn the credential may receive academic credit to universities around the world. This makes the credential a pathway to over 50 master’s degree programs and other advanced degrees, including at MIT. Eldouma believes that her experience in the MicroMasters courses prepared her well for the expectations of the LSE program. After finishing the MicroMasters and LSE programs, Eldouma aspires to a career using data science to better understand what is happening on the African continent from an economic and social point of view. She hopes to contribute to solutions to conflicts across the region. And, someday, she hopes to move back to Sudan. “My family’s roots are there. I have memories there,” she says. “I miss walking in the street and the background noise is the same language that I am thinking in. I don’t think I will ever find that in any place like Sudan.”
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Sofiia Lipkevych

Sofiia Lipkevych

College Student
Ukraine
Ukrainian students and collaborators provide high-quality translations of MIT OpenCourseWare educational resources. Stefanie Koperniak | MIT Open Learning With war continuing to disrupt education for millions of Ukrainian high school and college students, many are turning to online resources, including MIT OpenCourseWare, a part of MIT Open Learning offering educational materials from more than 2,500 MIT undergraduate and graduate courses. For Ukrainian high school senior Sofiia Lipkevych and other students, MIT OpenCourseWare has provided valuable opportunities to take courses in key subject areas. However, while multiple Ukrainian students study English, many do not yet have sufficient command of the language to be able to fully understand and use the often very technical and complex OpenCourseWare content and materials. “At my school, I saw firsthand how language barriers prevented many Ukrainian students from accessing world-class education,” says Lipkevych. She was able to address this challenge as a participant in the Ukrainian Leadership and Technology Academy (ULTA), established by Ukrainian MIT students Dima Yanovsky and Andrii Zahorodnii. During summer 2024 at ULTA, Lipkevych worked on a browser extension that translated YouTube videos in real-time. Since MIT OpenCourseWare was a main source of learning materials for students participating in ULTA, she was inspired to translate OpenCourseWare lectures directly and to have this translation widely available on the OpenCourseWare website and YouTube channel. She reached out to Professor Elizabeth Wood, founding director of the MIT Ukraine Program, who connected her with MIT OpenCourseWare Director Curt Newton. Although there had been some translations of MIT OpenCourseWare’s educational resources available beginning in 2004, these initial translations were conducted manually by several global partners, without the efficiencies of the latest artificial intelligence tools, and over time the programs couldn’t be sustained, and shut down. “We were thrilled to have this contact with ULTA,” says Newton. “We’ve been missing having a vibrant translation community, and we are excited to have a ‘phase 2’ of translations emerge.” The ULTA team selected courses to translate based on demand among Ukrainian students, focusing on foundational subjects that are prerequisites for advanced learning — particularly those for which high-quality, Ukrainian-language materials are scarce. Starting with caption translations on videos of lectures, the team has translated the following courses so far: 18.06 (Linear Algebra), 2.003SC (Engineering Dynamics), 5.60 (Thermodynamics & Kinetics), 6.006 (Introduction to Algorithms), and 6.0001 (Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python). They also worked directly with Andy Eskenazi, a PhD student in the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, to translate 16.002 (How to CAD Almost Anything - Siemens NX Edition). Introduction to the Human Brain Video: MIT OpenCourseWare The ULTA team developed multiple tools to help break language barriers. For MIT OpenCourseWare’s PDF content available through the ULTA program, they created a specialized tool that uses optical character recognition to recognize LaTeX in documents — such as problem sets and other materials — and then used a few large language models to translate them, all while maintaining technical accuracy. The team built a glossary of technical terms used in the courses and their corresponding Ukrainian translations, to help make sure that the wording was correct and consistent. Each translation also undergoes human review to further ensure accuracy and high quality. For video content, the team initially created a browser extension that can translate YouTube video captions in real-time. They ultimately collaborated with ElevenLabs, implementing their advanced AI dubbing editor that preserves the original speaker’s tone, pace, and emotional delivery. The lectures are translated in the ElevenLabs dubbing editor, and then the audio is uploaded to the MIT OpenCourseWare YouTube channel. The team is currently finalizing the translation of the audio for class 9.13 (The Human Brain), taught by MIT Professor Nancy Kanwisher, which Lipkevych says they selected for its interdisciplinary nature and appeal to a wide variety of learners. This Ukrainian translation project highlights the transformative potential of the latest translation technologies, building upon a 2023 MIT OpenCourseWare experiment using the Google Aloud AI dubbing prototype on a few courses, including MIT Professor Patrick Winston’s How to Speak. The advanced capabilities of the dubbing editor used in this project are opening up possibilities for a much greater variety of language offerings throughout MIT OpenCourseWare materials. “I expect that in a few years we’ll look back and see that this was the moment when things shifted for OpenCourseWare to be truly usable for the whole world,” says Newton. Community-led language translations of MIT OpenCourseWare materials serve as a high-impact example of the power of OpenCourseWare’s Creative Commons licensing, which grants everyone the right to revise materials to suit their particular needs and redistribute those revisions to the world. While there isn’t currently a way for users of the MIT OpenCourseWare platform to quickly identify which videos are available in which languages, MIT OpenCourseWare is working toward building this capability into its website, as well as expanding its number of offerings in different languages. “This project represents more than just translation,” says Lipkevych. “We’re enabling thousands of Ukrainians to build skills that will be essential for the country’s eventual reconstruction. We’re also hoping this model of collaboration can be extended to other languages and institutions, creating a template for making high-quality education accessible worldwide.” Read the Original Article on MIT News
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Bernardo Picão

Bernardo Picão

Student
Portugal
MIT OpenCourseWare “changed how I think about teaching and what a university is” Bernardo Picão, a graduate student in physics, has turned to MIT Open Learning’s resources throughout his educational journey. By Lauren Rebecca Thacker | MIT Open Learning Bernardo Picão has been interested in online learning since the early days of YouTube, when his father showed him a TED Talk. But it was with MIT Open Learning that he realized just how transformational digital resources can be. “YouTube was my first introduction to the idea that you can actually learn stuff via the internet,” Picão says. “So, when I became interested in mathematics and physics when I was 15 or 16, I turned to the internet and stumbled upon some playlists from MIT OpenCourseWare and went from there.” OpenCourseWare, part of MIT Open Learning, offers free online educational resources from over 2,500 MIT undergraduate and graduate courses. Since discovering it, Picão has explored linear algebra with Gilbert Strang, professor emeritus of mathematics — whom Picão calls “a legend” — and courses on metaphysics, functional analysis, quantum field theory, and English. He has returned to OpenCourseWare throughout his educational journey, which includes undergraduate studies in France and Portugal. Some courses provided different perspectives on material he was learning in his classes, while others filled gaps in his knowledge or satisfied his curiosity. Overall, Picão says that MIT resources made him a more robust scientist. He is currently completing a master’s degree in physics at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, where he researches prominent lattice quantum chromodynamics, an approach to the study of quarks that uses precise computer simulations. After completing his master’s degree, Picão says he will continue to a doctoral program in the field. At a recent symposium in Lisbon, Picão attended a lecture given by someone he had first seen in an OpenCourseWare video — Krishna Rajagopal, the William A. M. Burden Professor of Physics and former dean for digital learning at MIT Open Learning. There, he took the opportunity to thank Rajagopal for his support of OpenCourseWare, which Picão says is an important part of MIT’s mission as a leader in education. In addition to the range of subjects covered by OpenCourseWare, Picão praises the variety of instructors. All the courses are well-constructed, he says, but sometimes learners will connect with certain instructors or benefit from a particular presentation style. Since OpenCourseWare and other Open Learning programs offer such a wide range of free educational resources from MIT, learners can explore similar courses from different instructors to get new perspectives and round out their knowledge. While he enjoys his research, Picão’s passion is teaching. OpenCourseWare has helped him with that too, by providing models for how to teach math and science and how to connect with learners of different abilities and backgrounds. “I’m a very philosophical person,” he says. “I used to think that knowledge was intrinsically secluded in the large bindings of books, beyond the classroom walls, or inside the idiosyncratic minds of professors. OpenCourseWare changed how I think about teaching and what a university is — the point is not to keep knowledge inside of it, but to spread it.” Picão, now a teaching assistant at his institution, has been teaching since his days as a high school student tutoring his classmates or talking with members of his family. “I spent my youth sharing my knowledge with my grandmother and my extended family, including people who weren’t able to attend school past the fourth grade,” he says. “Seeing them get excited about knowledge is the coolest thing. Open Learning scales that up to the rest of the world and that can have an incredible impact.” The ability to learn from MIT experts has benefited Picão, deepening his understanding of the complex subjects that interest him. But, he acknowledges, he is a person who has access to high-quality instruction even without Open Learning. For learners who do not have that access, Open Learning is invaluable. “It’s hard to overstate the importance of such a project. MIT’s OpenCourseware and Open Learning profoundly shift how students all over the world can perceive their relationship with education: Besides an internet connection, the only requirement is the curiosity to explore the hundreds of expertly crafted courses and worksheets, perfect for self-studying,” says Picão. He continues, “People may find OpenCourseWare and think it is too good to be true. Why would such a prestigious institution break down the barriers to scientific education and commit to open-access, free resources? I want people to know: There is no catch. Sharing is the point.” “MIT OpenCourseWare ‘changed how I think about teaching and what a university is’” was originally published in MIT News on July 15, 2024.
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Ana Trišović

Ana Trišović

Researcher
USA
Ana Trišović, who studies the democratization of AI, reflects on a career path that she began as a student downloading free MIT resources in Serbia. Lauren Rebecca Thacker | MIT Open Learning As a college student in Serbia with a passion for math and physics, Ana Trišović found herself drawn to computer science and its practical, problem-solving approaches. It was then that she discovered MIT OpenCourseWare, part of MIT Open Learning, and decided to study a course on Data Analytics with Python in 2012 — something her school didn’t offer. That experience was transformative, says Trišović, who is now a research scientist at the FutureTech lab within MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. “That course changed my life,” she says. “Throughout my career, I have considered myself a Python coder, and MIT OpenCourseWare made it possible. I was in my hometown on another continent, learning from MIT world-class resources. When I reflect on my path, it’s incredible.” Over time, Trišović’s path led her to explore a range of OpenCourseWare resources. She recalls that, as a non-native English speaker, some of the materials were challenging. But thanks to the variety of courses and learning opportunities available on OpenCourseWare, she was always able to find ones that suited her. She encourages anyone facing that same challenge to be persistent. “If the first course doesn’t work for you, try another,” she says. “Being persistent and investing in yourself is the best thing a young person can do.” In her home country of Serbia, Trišović earned undergraduate degrees in computer science and mechanical engineering before going on to Cambridge University and CERN, where she contributed to work on the Large Hadron Collider and completed her PhD in computer science in 2018. She has also done research at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. “I like that computer science allows me to make an impact in a range of fields, but physics remains close to my heart, and I’m constantly inspired by it,” she says. MIT FutureTech, an interdisciplinary research group, draws on computer science, economics, and management to identify computing trends that create risk and opportunities for sustainable economic growth. There, Trišović studies the democratization of AI, including the implications of open-source AI and how that will impact science. Her work at MIT is a chance to build on research she has been pursuing since she was in graduate school. “My work focuses on computational social science. For many years, I’ve been looking at what’s known as ’the science of science’ — investigating issues like research reproducibility," Trišović explains. “Now, as AI becomes increasingly prevalent and introduces new challenges, I’m interested in examining a range of topics — from AI democratization to its effects on the scientific method and the broader landscape of science.” Trišović is grateful that, way back in 2012, she made the decision to try something new and learn with an OpenCourseWare course. “I instantly fell in love with Python the moment I took that course. I have such a soft spot for OpenCourseWare — it shaped my career,” she says. “Every day at MIT is inspiring. I work with people who are excited to talk about AI and other fascinating topics.” Read the Original Article on MIT News
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Bia Adams

Bia Adams

Independent Learner
United Kingdom
Psychologist Bia Adams discovered a passion for computational neuroscience thanks to open-access MIT educational resources. Stefanie Koperniak | MIT Open Learning Bia Adams, a London-based neuropsychologist, former professional ballet dancer, and MIT Open Learning learner, has built her career across decades of diverse, interconnected experiences and an emphasis on lifelong learning. She earned her bachelor’s degree in clinical and behavioral psychology, and then worked as a psychologist and therapist for several years before taking a sabbatical in her late 20s to study at the London Contemporary Dance School and The Royal Ballet — fulfilling a long-time dream. “In hindsight, I think what drew me most to ballet was not so much the form itself,” says Adams, “but more of a subconscious desire to make sense of my body moving through space and time, my emotions and motivations — all within a discipline that is rigorous, meticulous, and routine-based. It’s an endeavor to make sense of the world and myself.” After acquiring some dance-related injuries, Adams returned to psychology. She completed an online certificate program specializing in medical neuroscience via Duke University, focusing on how pathology arises out of the way the brain computes information and generates behavior. In addition to her clinical practice, she has also worked at a data science and AI consultancy for neural network research. In 2022, in search of new things to learn and apply to both her work and personal life, Adams discovered MIT OpenCourseWare within MIT Open Learning. She was drawn to class 8.04 (Quantum Physics I), which specifically focuses on quantum mechanics, as she was hoping to finally gain some understanding of complex topics that she had tried to teach herself in the past with limited success. She credits the course’s lectures, taught by Allan Adams (physicist and principal investigator of the MIT Future Ocean Lab), with finally making these challenging topics approachable. “I still talk to my friends at length about exciting moments in these lectures,” says Adams. “After the first class, I was hooked.” Adams’s journey through MIT Open Learning’s educational resources quickly led to a deeper interest in computational neuroscience. She learned how to use tools from mathematics and computer science to better understand the brain, nervous system, and behavior. She says she gained many new insights from class 6.034 (Artificial Intelligence), particularly in watching the late Professor Patrick Winston’s lectures. She appreciated learning more about the cognitive psychology aspect of AI, including how pioneers in the field looked at how the brain processes information and aimed to build programs that could solve problems. She further enhanced her understanding of AI with the Minds and Machines course on MITx Online, part of Open Learning. Adams is now in the process of completing Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python, taught by John Guttag; Eric Grimson, former interim vice president for Open Learning; and Ana Bell. “I am multilingual, and I think the way my brain processes code is similar to the way computers code,” says Adams. “I find learning to code similar to learning a foreign language: both exhilarating and intimidating. Learning the rules, deciphering the syntax, and building my own world through code is one of the most fascinating challenges of my life.” Adams is also pursuing a master’s degree at Duke and the University College of London, focusing on the neurobiology of sleep and looking particularly at how the biochemistry of the brain can affect this critical function. As a complement to this research, she is currently exploring class 9.40 (Introduction to Neural Computation), taught by Michale Fee and Daniel Zysman, which introduces quantitative approaches to understanding brain and cognitive functions and neurons and covers foundational quantitative tools of data analysis in neuroscience. In addition to the courses related more directly to her field, MIT Open Learning also provided Adams an opportunity to explore other academic areas. She delved into philosophy for the first time, taking Paradox and Infinity, taught by Professor Agustín Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and Digital Learning Lab Fellow David Balcarras, which looks at the intersection of philosophy and mathematics. She also was able to explore in more depth immunology, which had always been of great interest to her, through Professor Adam Martin’s lectures on this topic in class 7.016 (Introductory Biology). “I am forever grateful for MIT Open Learning,” says Adams, “for making knowledge accessible and fostering a network of curious minds, all striving to share, expand, and apply this knowledge for the greater good.” Read the Original Article on MIT News
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Doğa Kürkçüoğlu

Doğa Kürkçüoğlu

Independent Learner
United States
MIT OpenCourseWare sparks the joy of deep understanding With the help of MIT’s online resources, Doğa Kürkçüoğlu, now a staff scientist at Fermilab, was able to pursue his passion for physics. Lauren Rebecca Thacker | MIT Open Learning From a young age, Doğa Kürkçüoğlu heard his father, a math teacher, say that learning should be about understanding and real-world applications rather than memorization. But it wasn’t until he began exploring MIT OpenCourseWare in 2004 that Kürkçüoğlu experienced what it means to truly understand complex subject matter. “MIT professors showed me how to look at a concept from different angles that I hadn’t before, and that helped me internalize information,” says Kürkçüoğlu, who turned to MIT OpenCourseWare to supplement what he was learning as an undergraduate studying physics. “Once I understood techniques and concepts, I was able to apply them in different disciplines. Even now, there are many equations I don’t have memorized exactly, but because I understand the underlying ideas, I can derive them myself in just a few minutes.” Though there was a point in his life when friends and classmates thought he might pursue music, Kürkçüoğlu — a skilled violinist who currently plays in a jazz band on the side — always had a passion for math and physics and was determined to learn everything he could to pursue the career he imagined for himself. “Even when I was 4 or 5 years old, if someone asked me, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ I would say a scientist or mathematician,” says Kürkçüoğlu, who is now a staff scientist at Fermilab in the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center. Fermilab is the U.S. Department of Energy laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research. “I feel lucky that I actually get to do the job I imagined as a little kid,” Kürkçüoğlu says. OpenCourseWare and other resources from MIT Open Learning — including courses, lectures, written guides, and problem sets — played an important role in Kürkçüoğlu’s learning journey and career. He turned to these open educational resources throughout his undergraduate studies at Marmara University in Turkey. When he completed his degree in 2008, Kürkçüoğlu set his sights on a PhD. He says he felt ready to dive right into doctoral-level research thanks to so many MIT OpenCourseWare lectures, courses, and study guides. He started a PhD program at Georgia Tech, where his research focused on theoretical condensed matter physics with ultra-cold atoms. “Without OpenCourseWare, I could not have done that,” he says, adding that he considers himself “an honorary MIT graduate.” Memorable courses include particle physics with Iain W. Stewart, the Otto (1939) and Jane Morningstar Professorship in Science Professor of Physics and director of the Center for Theoretical Physics; and Statistical Mechanics of Fields with Mehran Kardar, professor of physics. Learning from Kardar felt especially apt, because Kürkçüoğlu’s undergraduate advisor, Nihat Berker, was Kardar’s PhD advisor. Berker is also emeritus professor of physics at MIT. Once he completed his PhD in 2015, Kürkçüoğlu spent time as an assistant professor at Georgia Southern University and a postdoc at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He joined Fermilab in 2020. There, he works on quantum theory and quantum algorithms. He enjoys the research-focused atmosphere of a national laboratory, where teams of scientists are working toward tangible goals. When he was teaching, though, he encouraged his students to check out Open Learning resources. “I would tell them, first of all, to have fun. Learning should be fun — another idea that my father always encouraged as a math teacher. With OpenCourseWare, you can get a new perspective on something you already know about, or open a course that can expand your horizons,” Kürkçüoğlu says. “Depending on where you start, it might take you an hour, a week, or a month to fully understand something. Once you understand, it’s yours. It is a different kind of joy to actually, truly understand.” “MIT OpenCourseWare sparks the joy of deep understanding” was originally published in MIT News on September 17, 2024.
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June Odongo

June Odongo

Independent Learner
Kenya
Entrepreneur creates career pathways with MIT OpenCourseWare June Odongo uses free, online MIT courses to train high-quality candidates, making them job-ready. By Sara Feijo | MIT Open Learning When June Odongo interviewed early-career electrical engineer Cynthia Wacheke for a software engineering position at her company, Wacheke lacked knowledge of computer science theory but showed potential in complex problem-solving. Determined to give Wacheke a shot, Odongo turned to MIT OpenCourseWare to create a six-month “bridging course” modeled after the classes she once took as a computer science student. Part of MIT Open Learning, OpenCourseWare offers free, online, open educational resources from more than 2,500 courses that span the MIT undergraduate and graduate curriculum. “Wacheke had the potential and interest to do the work that needed to be done, so the way to solve this was for me to literally create a path for her to get that work done,” says Odongo, founder and CEO of Senga Technologies. Developers, Odongo says, are not easy to find. The OpenCourseWare educational resources provided a way to close that gap. “We put Wacheke through the course last year, and she is so impressive,” Odongo says. “Right now, she is doing our first machine learning models. It’s insane how good of a team member she is. She has done so much in such a short time.” Making high-quality candidates job-ready Wacheke, who holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nairobi, started her professional career as a hardware engineer. She discovered a passion for software while working on a dashboard design project, and decided to pivot from hardware to software engineering. That’s when she discovered Senga Technologies, a logistics software and services company in Kenya catering to businesses that ship in Africa. Odongo founded Senga with the goal of simplifying and easing the supply chain and logistics experience, from the movement of goods to software tools. Senga’s ultimate goal, Odongo says, is to have most of their services driven by software. That means employees — and candidates — need to be able to think through complex problems using computer science theory. “A lot of people are focused on programming, but we care less about programming and more about problem-solving,” says Odongo, who received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and an MBA from Harvard Business School. “We actually apply the things people learn in computer science programs.” Wacheke started the bridging course in June 2022 and was given six months to complete the curriculum on the MIT OpenCourseWare website. She took nine courses, including: Introduction to Algorithms; Mathematics for Computer Science; Design and Analysis of Algorithms; Elements of Software Construction; Automata, Computability, and Complexity; Database Systems; Principles of Autonomy and Decision Making; Introduction to Machine Learning; and Networks. “The bridging course helped me learn how to think through things,” Wacheke says. “It’s one thing to know how to do something, but it’s another to design that thing from scratch and implement it.” During the bridging course, Wacheke was paired with a software engineer at Senga, who mentored her and answered questions along the way. She learned Ruby on Rails, a server-side web application framework under the MIT License. Wacheke also completed other projects to complement the theory she was learning. She created a new website that included an integration to channel external requests to Slack, a cross-platform team communication tool used by the company’s employees. Continuous learning for team members The bridging course concluded with a presentation to Senga employees, during which Wacheke explained how the company could use graph theory for decision-making. “If you want to get from point A to B, there are algorithms you can use to find the shortest path,” Wacheke says. “Since we’re a logistics company, I thought we could use this when we’re deciding which routes our trucks take.” The presentation, which is the final requirement for the bridging course, is also a professional development opportunity for Senga employees. “This process is helpful for our team members, particularly those who have been out of school for a while,” Odongo says. “The candidates present what they’ve learned in relation to Senga. It’s a way of doing continuous learning for the existing team members.” After successfully completing the bridging course in November 2022, Wacheke transitioned to a full-time software engineer role. She is currently developing a “machine” that can interpret and categorize hundreds of documents, including delivery notes, cash flows, and receipts. “The goal is to enable our customers to simply feed those documents into our machine, and then we can more accurately read and convert them to digital formats to drive automation,” Odongo says. “The machine will also enable someone to ask a document a question, such as ‘What did I deliver to retailer X on date Y?’ or ‘What is the total price of the goods delivered?’” The bridging course, which was initially custom-designed for Wacheke, is now a permanent program at Senga. A second team member completed the course in October 2023 and has joined the software team full time. “Developers are not easy to find, and you also want high-quality developers,” Odongo says. “At least when we do this, we know that the person has gone through what we need.” Read the Original Article This article was republished with permission from the MIT News Office
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Andrea Henshall

Andrea Henshall

Independent Learner
United States
Veteran and PhD student Andrea Henshall has used MIT Open Learning to soar from the Air Force to multiple aeronautics degrees. By Katherine Ouellette | MIT Open Learning Andrea Henshall, a retired major in the U.S. Air Force and current MIT PhD student, has completed seven tours of combat, two years of aerial circus performance, and three higher education degrees (so far). But throughout each step of her journey, all roads seemed to point to MIT. Currently working on her doctoral degree with an MIT master’s already in her toolkit, she is quick to attribute her academic success to MIT’s open educational resources. “I kept coming back to MIT-produced open source learning,” she says. “MIT dominates in educational philanthropy when it comes to free high-quality learning sources.” To this day, Henshall recommends MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) and MITx courses to students and her fellow veterans who are transitioning out of the service. A love of flight and a drive to excel Henshall first discovered OCW as she was pursuing her master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. Transitioning from an applied engineering program at the United States Air Force Academy to a more theoretical program proved a challenge for Henshall, and her first semester grades got her put on academic probation. During Independent Activities Period, she took Professor Gilbert Strang’s linear algebra courses on OCW, which included both videos and homework. Henshall found Strang very engaging and easy to learn from and found it helpful to work through the homework when they had the solutions available. She was able to lift her grades the following semester, and by the end of her program, she was getting all A’s. Henshall says, “OpenCourseWare really saved me. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to complete my master’s.” Ever since Henshall learned the term “astronautical engineer” in the fourth grade, she knew what she wanted to be when she grew up. That early love of outer space and building things led her to a bachelor’s degree in astronautical engineering and the Air Force. There she served as a research and development officer, instructor pilot, and chief financial officer of her squadron. But a non-combat-related injury forced her to medically retire from being a pilot. “I was not doing well physically, and it was impossible for me to get hired to be a pilot outside of the Air Force.” After a brief detour as a part-time aerial circus performer, she decided to go back to school. Watch Andrea Henshall’s story about How MIT OpenCourseWare and MITx helped her soar. Learning how to learn Working outside of academia for eight years proved to be a tough transition. Henshall says, “I had to translate the work I had done in the military into something relevant for an academic application, and the language they were looking for was very different from what I was used to.” She thought acquiring more recent academic work might help improve her application. She attended Auburn University for her second master’s degree (this time in computer science and software engineering) and started a PhD. Again she turned to MIT OCW to supplement her studies. Henshall says, “I remembered vividly how much it had helped me in 2005, so of course that’s where I was going to start. Then I noticed that OCW linked to MITx, which had more interactive quizzes.” The OCW platform had also become more robust since she had first used it. “Back then, it was new, there wasn’t necessarily a standard,” she says. Over 10 years later, she found that most courses had more material, videos, and notes that more closely approximated an MIT course experience. Those additional open education resources gave Henshall an extra edge to complete a 21-month program in 12 months with a 4.0 GPA. Her advisor told her that she had the best thesis defense he had seen in 25 years. In 2019, Henshall’s success helped her get accepted to MIT’s PhD program in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, in the Autonomy and Embedded Robotics Accelerated (AERA) lab under the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), with a Lester Durand Gardner Fellowship. Her focus is controls systems with a minor in quantum information. She says, “I’m literally living my dream. I’m at my dream school with my dream advisor.” Working with Professor Sertac Karaman in LIDS, Henshall plans to write her thesis on multi-agent reinforcement learning. But her relationship with online learning is far from over; again she has turned to OCW and MITx resources for the foundation to succeed in subjects such as controls, machine learning, quantum mechanics, and quantum computation. When the pandemic struck the East Coast, Henshall was only nine months into her PhD program at MIT. The pivot to online learning made it difficult to continue building relationships with classmates. But what was a new course experience for many learners during the pandemic felt very familiar to Henshall. “I had a leg up because I already knew how to learn through prerecorded videos on a computer instead of three-dimensional human standing in front of a chalkboard. I had already learned how to learn.” A lifelong commitment to service Henshall plans to return to the Department of Defense or related industries. Currently, she works collaboratively on two major projects related to her PhD thesis and her career path after she completes the program. The first project is an AI accelerator program through the Air Force. Her work with unmanned aerial vehicles (a.k.a. drones) uses a small quadrotor to autonomously and quickly search a building using reinforcement learning. The primary intended use is search and rescue. The second project involves research into multi-agent reinforcement learning and pathfinding. While also intended for search and rescue, they could be used for a variety of non-emergency inspection purposes as well. Henshall is eager to share open education resources. At Auburn she shared OCW materials with her classmates, and now she uses them with the students she tutors. She’s also committed to sharing knowledge and resources with her fellow service members, and is an active member of a number of veterans’ organizations. With the Warrior-Scholar Project, she answers questions from enlisted people going into undergraduate programs, ranging from “What’s parking like?” to “How did you prepare for school?” As a Service to School ambassador, she is assigned to mentor veterans who are transitioning out of the military and looking to apply to graduate school, usually MIT hopefuls or other competitive schools. She’s able to draw from her own application experience to help others identify the core message their application should communicate and finesse the language to sound less like a military brief and more like the “academic speak” they will encounter moving forward. Henshall says, “My trajectory would be so different if MITx and OCW didn’t exist, and I feel that’s true for so many thousands of other students. So many other institutions have copied the model, but MIT was the first and it’s still the best.” Originally published on https://news.mit.edu on March 16, 2022 and reposted from Medium. We hope you’ve been inspired by this story and by OCW’s effort to meet the needs of learners eager to enhance their knowledge, lift up their communities, and change the world for the benefit of everyone. Please consider supporting our work with a donation or if giving isn’t possible right now, we’d love to hear how OCW has made a difference in your life or classroom. We’d appreciate it!
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Chansa Kabwe

Chansa Kabwe

Independent Learner
Zambia
Learner Chansa Kabwe pursued a rigorous course of study in electrical engineering and computer science to broaden his horizons By Angela Pignatiello | MIT Open Learning Chansa Kabwe, a machine learning engineer and MIT OpenCourseWare learner from Zambia, is a shining example of how to forge — or perhaps code — one’s own future. A go-getter from the start, Kabwe cites his father as a driving force behind his early love of math and science. “My education has always been an important part of my life,” he recounts. When he discovered Honda’s ASIMO robot on National Television in the early 2000s, his interest was further piqued. “It was my first time seeing a real-life robot, like in the movies,” says Kabwe, who was between 11 and 12 years old at the time. Amazed, he wanted to learn how to work and play with the robots. Kabwe continued to pursue science through his time at a national technical high school, where he was involved in STEM activities and competitions. Upon graduation he knew he wanted to study robotics, but there were no such programs to speak of in the country at that time. He resolved to major in electronics engineering at the University of Zambia, but that pull towards robotics never left him. During his freshman year of college, Kabwe had free and unrestricted access to the internet for the first time. He searched the rankings of top colleges and engineering programs. Up until then, he had never heard of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I saw that for engineering, ever since they had started ranking, MIT had always been number one,” he recalls. “And I was like, okay — they are doing something. Let me check them out.” MIT’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) program intrigued him, and when he came upon MIT OpenCourseWare, he found a series of archived EECS classes as taught in a given term, with all available resources put online. Using outlines from the EECS undergraduate degree track as laid out on the department’s website, Kabwe discovered math, programming, foundations, and elective classes to create his own EECS experience. He decided to dedicate any time reserved for individual studies to learning through these resources. He essentially took on two courseloads — one in his studies at the University of Zambia, and another of his own design through OpenCourseWare. He began with 6.00 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming with Prof. Eric Grimson. “This course taught me how to think like a computer scientist — that was the essence of the course,” he says, crediting the course, as well as 6.002 Circuits and Electronics with Prof. Anant Agarwal, with giving him a solid foundation to bring to his university coursework. “I learned from zero; I had never done any programming before. It was very revealing for me,” says Kabwe, who has since become a donor to OpenCourseWare. As his college career progressed, these resources became more and more helpful in his studies. “I didn’t really need to learn any completely new things, especially on the electronics side. Everything in the foundations was covered — I didn’t feel the need to catch up. I was revising.” By senior year, Kabwe found a niche of robotics that spoke to him: artificial intelligence. 6.01 Introduction to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science I had introduced him to search algorithms, an important area of AI, and in September 2011, Kabwe started his first course on artificial intelligence, 6.034. “There’s evolution happening in industry and in the world at large,” he says. Now, Kabwe is a machine learning engineer for startup Digest AI, where he builds language models for digital learning assistants. “OpenCourseWare continues to be a big part of my career. My foundation is linked to it — I don’t know if I would be the same engineer today if not for OpenCourseWare,” says Kabwe. We hope you’ve been inspired by this story and by OCW’s effort to meet the needs of learners eager to enhance their knowledge, lift up their communities, and change the world for the benefit of everyone. Please consider supporting our work with a donation or if giving isn’t possible right now, we’d love to hear how OCW has made a difference in your life or classroom. We’d appreciate it!
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İleri Çalışmalar

İleri Çalışmalar

Students
Turkey
Study group of medical students in Turkey uses free MIT resources to pursue a PhD-level research agenda. By Duyen Nguyen | MIT Open Learning About two years ago, a group of medical students at Ege University Faculty of Medicine in Turkey began meeting to study single variable calculus. None of the students had taken a course in this subject before. But with the guidance of lectures, slides, and other freely available resources on MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), they soon advanced onto multivariable calculus. Then differential equations. Then linear algebra. Today, the students, who call their study group İleri Çalışmalar, or “Advanced Studies,” are paving their own road toward doctoral-level studies — with MIT OCW as their main resource. “Our motivation is to create a theoretical background in order to do research while we’re studying in medical school,” says Yıldırım Adalıoğlu, one of the study group’s co-founders, who explains that MD-PhD programs, which prepare students to become both clinicians and researchers, have only recently become available in Turkey, and are rare. “We didn’t have the chance to do doctoral-level research during medical school. We decided to create that for ourselves.” Using OCW courses to build their own curriculum, the members of İleri Çalışmalar have developed an independent program of study while working toward their medical degrees. The study group devotes about three months — the equivalent of an MIT semester — to each course in their curriculum. While most of their peers are on the clinician path, the group co-founded by Sıla Özkal, Begüm Tahhan, and Çağan Kaplan typically draws six to 10 students per course. Support and collaboration to pursue focused interests Depending on their schedule, Kaplan explains, the students meet weekly to discuss the OCW lectures and to review course materials. At each meeting, one or more members of the group volunteer to recap the lectures and to facilitate discussion. For new courses — like probability, the group’s current focus — the students approach discussion sessions collaboratively. “After nearly two years of medical coursework,” Adalıoğlu says, “we can now teach and adapt the earlier courses for new students as well.” The group also brainstorms potential research projects, some of which they have already carried out, independently and in collaboration with faculty from other departments and labs. For instance, over the summer a few students from the group interned at a biomedicine and genome research center. They drew on the knowledge they gained from classes 6.0001 (Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python) and 6.0002 (Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science) to work on a study on analyzing the effects of mutations in a specific protein. The internship called for a background in computational research and data analysis. Thanks to MIT OCW, the İleri Çalışmalar students were well-prepared, says Adalıoğlu. “If we didn’t have the Python course from MIT, then we couldn’t go to the lab and do the internship there.” Combining their medical interests with their OCW coursework, Adalıoğlu and Kaplan also developed a computational model to study the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany. They’re now in the process of trying to publish their findings. “OCW broadens our horizons,” Kaplan says. Adalıoğlu adds, “If we want to do computational research, it’s mainly up to us. There aren’t many people on the medical faculty that work on computational projects. That’s why when we decide to do a computational project, either we solve the problems ourselves or we ask for help from professors from other universities and labs.” For Tahhan, who interned at a government science institute, where she studied hyperlipidemia in pediatric patients, the OCW courses have opened new areas of interest. “I realized I was interested in biochemistry when I took the 5.08J Biological Chemistry II course from OCW, so I applied for the internship,” she says. Özkal, who attends a cancer research internship, also credits the OCW courses that İleri Çalışmalar has covered with advancing her research goals. The tool kits to build their own future Currently in their third and fourth years of medical school, the İleri Çalışmalar founders note that OpenCourseWare has been a useful supplement to their medical studies as well. While studying the human gastrointestinal system, for example, they revisited the biological chemistry course materials to better understand the biochemical pathways that lead to absorption. “When we are confused about any subject, we can always go back to OCW and search for the slides,” says Kaplan. “We all want to do novel research and study the topics that allow people to understand our universe better. That’s why we started medical school, that’s why we want to do a PhD after medical school,” Adalıoğlu says. “We all love medicine and we love pathology, physiology, learning about diseases — we want to solve the problems that come from these diseases, but we need the tool kits to do research. Thanks to MIT OpenCourseWare and our own efforts, I hope we can create some vision — a path for other students after us.” “Enabling advanced studies in Turkey with MIT OpenCourseWare” was originally published in MIT News on January 12, 2023.
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Emmanuel Kasigazi

Emmanuel Kasigazi

Independent Learner
Uganda
“I get the chance to not only watch the future happen, but I can actually be a part of it and create it,” says Ugandan entrepreneur Emmanuel Kasigazi. Duyen Nguyen | MIT Open Learning Like millions of others during the global Covid-19 lockdowns, Emmanuel Kasigazi, an entrepreneur from Uganda, turned to YouTube to pass the time. But he wasn’t following an influencer or watching music videos. A lifelong learner, Kasigazi was scouring the video-sharing platform for educational resources. Since 2013, when he got his first smartphone, Kasigazi has been charting his own learning journey through YouTube, educating himself on subjects as diverse as psychology and artificial intelligence. And it was while searching for the answer to an AI-related question that Kasigazi first discovered MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW). “Here they were, all these courses by one of the best — if not the best — schools in tech in the world, and they were free. For a long time I couldn’t believe it. I told everyone I knew." “The search results showed MIT lectures, and I thought, ‘Which MIT is this?’” recalls Kasigazi, who admits he was initially skeptical as he opened the OCW YouTube channel. To his amazement, he found hundreds of courses there — not only clips, but complete lectures that he could follow alongside the students in MIT classrooms. He searched for more information on OCW and tried the channel on different browsers to triple-check its credibility. “Here they were, all these courses by one of the best — if not the best — schools in tech in the world, and they were free. For a long time I couldn’t believe it. I told everyone I knew,” he remembers. For Kasigazi, the channel became a gateway to other open education resources, including the OpenCourseWare website and MITx courses, both part of MIT Open Learning. “I always had the questions — I grew up on science cartoons like ‘Dexter’s Laboratory’ and ‘Pinky and the Brain’ — so I would go on YouTube to try to find answers to these questions, and I found this whole other world,” he says. OCW launched its YouTube channel in 2008, and this August passed 4 million subscribers. While introductory computer science, math, and physics are the most-visited courses on the OCW website, the most popular YouTube videos reflect a more diverse range of interests, including a lecture about piloting a fighter jet aircraft, an introduction to the human brain, and an introduction to financial terms and concepts. Through this extensive collection, Kasigazi explains that he’s been able to explore “the things I love,” while also studying cloud computing, data science, and AI — fields that he plans to pursue in graduate studies. He says, “This is what OpenCourseWare has enabled me to do: I get the chance to not only watch the future happen, but I can actually be a part of it and create it.” Understanding humanity through the liberal arts When Kasigazi was young, a beloved aunt recognized his natural curiosity and steered him toward the best schools. “I owe her everything,” he says, “everything I am is because of her.” Thanks to his excellent grades he received an academic scholarship from the Ugandan government to attend Makerere University, one of the top universities in sub-Saharan Africa, where he earned a degree in information systems. Having pursued IT for its practical applications, Kasigazi admits that he was initially more interested in the science and theory behind computers than “the coding bits of it.” “I love the concept of it — how we are trying to make these machines,” he says, explaining that he’s long been drawn to the social sciences and humanities, particularly psychology and philosophy. “I’m interested in how we work as human beings, because everything we do is for, with, and around human beings,” says Kasigazi, who considers psychology to be foundational to almost every field. “Whatever it is you’re teaching these kids, they’re going to be dealing with people. So first teach them what people think, how they act — that was my drive to love psychology.” Kasigazi has also turned to OCW to brush up on his coding skills, watching 6.0001 (Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python) lectures with Professor Ana Bell and reviewing the instructor-paced version with Professor Eric Grimson now on MITx. “I am proud to say MIT OCW has made me fall in love with coding … it makes sense like it never has before,” he says. Nurturing a worldview In 2014 Kasigazi moved to South Sudan, which had only recently emerged from a civil war as an independent nation. Fresh out of university, he was there to teach computer skills and graphic design — some of his students included members of the new country’s government — but his time in South Sudan quickly became a learning experience for him, too. “When you grow up in your community, you have this bubble. We all experience it — it’s a human thing,” he reflects. “For the first time, I realized that everything I knew is not a given. Everything I grew up knowing is not universal.” With his worldview newly broadened, he began to nurture his interest in psychology, philosophy, and the sciences, watching crash courses, explainer videos, and other content on the subject. “It’s entertainment, to me, at the same time that it’s a passion,” he says. Today Kasigazi runs his own company, which he started in 2012 with friends and resumed when he returned to Uganda seven years ago. Since coming across the OCW YouTube channel, Kasigazi has worked through all of the freely available MIT psychology courses. Professor John Gabrieli’s 9.00SC (Introduction to Psychology) have particularly resonated with him, even prompting him to reach out to Gabrieli. “As much as I’d been getting some knowledge on psychology over the years online, it wasn’t as deep and as interesting or captivating as your classes were,” he wrote. “From your teaching style, to the explanations, to the topics, to how you make people understand a topic, to the experiments mentioned and referenced, to how you approach questions and later make one think deeper about them.” “The message from Emmanuel is deeply touching about the joy of learning,” says Gabrieli, who is also an investigator at the McGovern Institute. “I am so grateful to OCW for making this course on psychology open to the world, and to Emmanuel for so delightfully sharing what this course meant to him.” New courses are added regularly to both the OCW website and YouTube channel. Kasigazi, who’s currently enjoying 9.13 (Introduction to the Human Brain) from professor and McGovern Institute investigator Nancy Kanwisher, looks forward to discovering what new worlds of knowledge they’ll open. Reposted from https://news.mit.edu on November 7, 2022. We hope you’ve been inspired by this story and by OCW’s effort to meet the needs of learners eager to enhance their knowledge, lift up their communities, and change the world for the benefit of everyone. Please consider supporting our work with a donation or if giving isn’t possible right now, we’d love to hear how OCW has made a difference in your life or classroom. We’d appreciate it!
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Michael Pilgreen

Michael Pilgreen

Independent Learner
United States
For MIT OpenCourseWare and MITx MicroMasters learner Michael Pilgreen, risk-taking and hands-on learning opened new doors in finance By Duyen Nguyen | MIT Open Learning Even before joining a financial technology startup, Michael Pilgreen believed in taking risks and investing long-term — especially when it came to his education and career. For six years, Pilgreen worked in creative production management, specializing in painting, metalworking, and installations. He’d established himself in the art world with large collaborative projects like a mosaic made entirely of sequins for the Chili’s Care Center at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, and never imagined himself working in a STEM field. But in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic brought his creative projects to a halt, Pilgreen found himself “unemployed, distraught, and confused, searching for a sense of purpose and direction.” That search led Pilgreen, a self-described “math nerd,” to financial technology — and to MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW). “I knew a lot of top universities in the world had started posting their courses and materials online to encourage global collaboration and learning,” Pilgreen recalls. “So, once I knew I wanted to learn finance and computers, I focused on the birthplace of financial engineering — MIT — and tried every way possible to consume information from MIT.” After watching Professor Andrew Lo’s introduction to finance lecture, Pilgreen was hooked. He completed Lo’s finance theory classes and dived into Professor Gary Gensler’s courses, including “Fintech: Shaping the Financial World” and “ Blockchain and Money.” The more time he invested in familiarizing himself with the field, the more certain he felt of his decision — and his ability — to break into the financial technology industry. Pilgreen jokes that the career switch would’ve required him to use a side of his brain he hadn’t tapped into since high school. But as he absorbed Gensler’s lectures and course materials, the graduate of Rhodes College realized that his liberal arts background could be an asset. “I knew I had the ability to grapple with big ideas and concepts, and saw the opportunity for innovation in the international capital markets,” he says, crediting the OCW courses with teaching him the “language and rhythm of the financial world.” The next step was to build his technical skills. Again, Pilgreen turned to OCW, this time exploring its catalog of computer science courses, including “ Introduction to Computer Science and Programming,” “ Mathematics for Computer Science,” and “ Introduction to Algorithms.” “All these courses laid the foundation for my technical knowledge and ability to understand complex engineering problems very quickly,” Pilgreen says. “I felt like I knew enough to be dangerous — and started applying to various local wealth management firms.” While cold-calling prospective employers might seem risky to some, for Pilgreen, it was another form of investing in himself and his future. He would call up three to five firms a day to ask about their use of technology and to get a sense of how he could apply his evolving knowledge and skills. “The more I learned, the more time I invested, and the more conversations I participated in — the more I felt like what I was doing was purposeful,” he says. With the finance and computer science courses on OCW giving him a solid foundation, Pilgreen continued investing in his learning by enrolling in the MITx MicroMasters program in finance. He also began studying for several financial certification exams, including the CFA, SIE, Series 7, and Series 66. Through MIT, Pilgreen learned of DataCamp, a platform offering courses in data science and machine learning. He signed up for that, too, and became so absorbed in developing his data skills that for several weeks, he was one of DataCamp’s top learners. “It was really as if I was in school full-time with all my studying but without the debt,” Pilgreen says, explaining that he was dollar-cost averaging, or regularly investing a fixed amount in Bitcoin, at the time to fund his enrollment in MicroMasters and the supplemental data science courses. For Pilgreen, the biggest risks result in the biggest rewards. While completing the finance MicroMasters program, he received two job offers — one from an established wealth management firm and another from BondCliQ, a financial technology startup that was just getting off the ground. Pilgreen went with the riskier option, seeing it as an opportunity for more hands-on learning, another kind of investment in himself. He started at the company in March 2021 after completing a two-month training program, learning the ropes of institutional trading in a sales role before moving into an engineering position to lead the startup’s architecture migration effort. Now a senior engineer at BondCliQ, Pilgreen reflects on the journey that began nearly two years ago with OCW. He says, “I feel nothing but gratitude for my instructors, the organizers, and the facilitators of both OCW and the MicroMasters. I am on the cusp of greatness and it was derived from learning.” Originally published on https://news.mit.edu on June 24, 2022 and reposted from Medium. We hope you’ve been inspired by this story and by OCW’s effort to meet the needs of learners eager to enhance their knowledge, lift up their communities, and change the world for the benefit of everyone. Please consider supporting our work with a donation or if giving isn’t possible right now, we’d love to hear how OCW has made a difference in your life or classroom. We’d appreciate it!
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Juan Guerrero

Juan Guerrero

Independent Learner
United States
After a 33-year career in biotechnology, Juan Guerrero uses MIT Open Learning’s online resources to continue improving his skills and understanding. Katherine Ouellette | MIT Open Learning Over Juan Guerrero’s 33-year biotechnology career, he has watched gene editing evolve from theory to reality. But Guerrero still recognizes the importance of continuing his education despite having a front-row seat to the genome industry since its inception. Guerrero received a degree in biology from University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) in 1992, and joined the workforce of thousands of sequencers mapping DNA. However, six years after leaving his job as a sequencing associate at Incyte, a lecturer at UC Berkeley informed Guerrero that the technology used to sequence the human genome had already become obsolete. “This stark contrast highlights the rapid pace of technological evolution in this field,” says Guerrero. “Motivated by this insight, I decided to return to school, starting with a course in genetics.” That’s when Guerrero enrolled as a part-time student at Pasadena City College in Los Angeles in 2016. Since then, he continues to deepen his knowledge with MIT Open Learning educational resources. “I decided to update my skills in the sciences because they change rapidly,” says Guerrero. Strengthening understanding Guerrero credits MIT Open Learning’s online resources with making a significant difference in his academic journey over the last decade. While searching for extra study materials to practice key concepts from his Pasadena City College courses, Guerrero was thrilled to find that MIT OpenCourseWare, part of Open Learning, offers a comprehensive collection of educational materials from thousands of MIT courses all in one place. “Due to the excellent array of available biology courses, I selectively explore topics from various OpenCourseWare course materials according to the particular concepts I wish to comprehend,” he says. Guerrero appreciates that OpenCourseWare dives deep into specific topics through an assortment of quizzes, exams, lecture notes, and videos. “It does challenge you to learn the concept, while at the same time, retaining it much better,” says Guerrero. MIT’s approach is different from how he first learned these concepts as an undergraduate — which he describes as “brute force memorization.” In one OpenCourseWare biology course lecture, for example, Guerrero studied a diagram of a cell that traced the path from nucleus to DNA. During a later assignment about protein production, he made the connection, “Oh, it goes by path. It’s organized,” he says. This holistic approach to learning helped strengthen his understanding of the concept. Guerrero also appreciates the platform’s flexibility, allowing him to learn on his own schedule. “What truly sets OpenCourseWare apart is its commitment to accessibility,” Guerrero says. “Not every student needs to be enrolled in a program and OpenCourseWare has made that possible. You can access what you want and it’s free.” Additionally, OpenCourseWare’s Creative Commons license allows anyone to modify, remix, and reuse its resources. This is particularly important for community colleges, like Pasadena City College, participating in California’s Zero Textbook Cost Program. The strength of OpenCourseWare for educators and students, Guerrero says, is that “people know it’s coming from a reliable, verified source — coming from MIT.” Researching medical applications After three decades in the biotech industry with roles ranging from research and development, to production, to quality assurance, Guerrero aspires to return to DNA research. He hopes to use advanced technologies that weren’t available during his previous time in the field — such as Next Generation Sequencing and CRISPR — to develop new medical applications. He aims to transform theoretical concepts into practical treatments for curing diseases and other conditions. “I’ve always thought about that aspect of helping someone with the technology made available,” he says. “However, I would prefer to remain in an academic environment until I have developed a comprehensive understanding of these technologies, as well as a solid foundation in genetics, which I believe is essential for effectively employing these advancements.” He says that OpenCourseWare has offered him a wealth of resources for his studies in genetics and other biological and chemical sciences. “The internet sped up the dissemination of all kinds of information,” Guerrero says. “There’s always so much more out there. You need updated knowledge.”
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Paige Dote

Paige Dote

Student
United States
Peter Chipman | OCW Digital Publication Specialist and OCW Educator Assistant It was a great pleasure to learn that MIT’s Math Department has named Paige Dote as one of five winners of this year’s Teaching and Learning Award. Dote, who has just finished her second year as an undergraduate math student, has a demonstrated passion for open education. She first formed a connection with MIT OpenCourseWare in the spring of 2021; after realizing how much valuable content is created for academic courses but never made available online, she began working with instructor Dr. Casey Rodriguez to share lecture videos and other materials from Dr. Rodriguez’s course 18.100A Real Analysis on OCW. MIT students have long been valued contributors of OCW materials, ranging from course notes that complement faculty materials to sample coursework such as essays and group projects that help bring a course to life for OCW users. We’re experimenting now with programs to encourage even more student contributions and create new ways for students to support OCW’s mission. In October 2021, Dote joined MIT graduate student Ashay Athalye and OCW staffers Curt Newton and Sarah Hansen to discuss these efforts in a panel discussion on “When Students Create OER: What We’ve Learned and What’s Next at MIT OpenCourseWare” at the OpenEd ’21 conference. During the Independent Activities Period in January 2022, Dote taught her first course at MIT, the three-week 18.S097 Introduction to Metric Spaces. (As you might guess, it’s unusual for for-credit courses at MIT to be taught by undergraduates, and it’s extremely unusual for such a course to be taught by a student in their second year.) In keeping with her commitment to open education, she generously shared the materials from the course, including the lecture notes and problem sets, on OCW. Above and beyond that, she agreed to answer a set of interview questions on her approach to teaching 18.S097; in that interview, which you can read in its entirety on the course’s Instructor Insights page, she describes her vision of the ideal role of students in the educational ecosystem: “I wish students took more of a part in the classroom,” she comments, “and I believe this can be better encouraged by professors.” We couldn’t agree more! Here’s hoping that Paige’s efforts will inspire a new generation of educational innovators among her fellow students, and that she herself will continue her work on behalf of open education in coming years, both as a student and as a teacher. Originally published at https://www.ocw-openmatters.org on June 20, 2022. We hope you’ve been inspired by this story and by OCW’s effort to meet the needs of learners eager to enhance their knowledge, lift up their communities, and change the world for the benefit of everyone. Please consider supporting our work with a donation or if giving isn’t possible right now, we’d love to hear how OCW has made a difference in your life or classroom. We’d appreciate it!
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Evelyn Laurito

Evelyn Laurito

Educator
Phillippines
Sara Sezun | MIT OpenCourseWare “The online courses I am augmenting my teaching with are very helpful. More content for less work helps me concentrate more on the teaching.” For the past several years, Evelyn Laurito has been using OCW materials in her classes. A Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines, Laurito has been teaching for more than thirty years. Approximately ten years ago, the University of Santo Tomas faculty decided to incorporate Blackboard into their classrooms. A software program designed for traditional residential classes, Blackboard allows instructors to add online content to their class materials. Laurito served as Content Development Manager for this initiative. After learning about OCW from the Internet, she recommended it to her fellow faculty members. “I gave presentations to our faculty and would always say, ‘They don’t have to reinvent the wheel,’ because the website provides open courses where they can find very useful materials for their lectures.” Laurito teaches mostly undergraduate chemical engineering courses including Plant Design, Particulate Technology, and Environmental Science and Engineering. Over the years, she has utilized OCW materials from courses on the environment, ecology, and wastewater treatment. Laurito’s first experience with OCW was through an Introduction to Chemical Engineering course. She says, “I just linked my resources in Blackboard there, and I did not have to do much preparation for materials for teaching, because it was already fairly complete.” By saving time in lesson preparation and explanation of concepts, Laurito can spend more time in direct interaction with her students. “I can just assign it (OCW readings) to my students and then ask questions during class, a sort of flipped classroom.” Along with her regular course load, Laurito co-teaches “Globalization: A Multi-Disciplinary Perspective.” This online course is organized by the International Council of Universities of St. Thomas (ICUSTA), of which Laurito’s school is a member. ICUSTA students from a variety of fields, such as business, international relations, and engineering, take the class to gain an international perspective on issues related to globalization. The course is divided into twelve modules, all taught by professors from ICUSTA schools. Laurito teaches a module called “Current State of the Global Environment and Energy Resources.” At the moment, Laurito is utilizing OCW materials for her Industrial Waste Management and Control class, which she describes as a “web-enhanced course.” In addition, Laurito finds OCW useful in keeping knowledge of her field current. She says, “I continue to check out new courses offered by MIT and download them.”
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