Here Are 6 Free Online Ivy League Courses You Can Try Right Now & You Can Start Any Time
Uma Thurman's dad teaches one of them!
Brown University students. Right: A Harvard medicine school student.
If you’ve always dreamt of going to an Ivy League university but you were anxious about being rejected or going into debt, then now's the time to make that dream come true.
A bunch of Ivy League universities are offering free online courses this spring, and you can learn from the best and brightest while staying home and cozy.
And if you really want, you can even get your own certificate with "Yale University" on it!
Here are just a handful of the many informative and fun courses you can take from home — and they're absolutely free!
Imagining Other Earths
School: Princeton University.
Why You Should Apply: Ever watched those crazy videos that keep zooming out of Earth, making it smaller and smaller until it’s just a speck in the vast universe we inhabit, making you realize how minuscule we and our problems are in the grand scheme of things and it makes you wonder what else is out there because there is no way we are the only form of life in the entire universe? Yeah, that’s what this course is about. It’s basically an existential crisis in the guise of a course, but it's taught by an Ivy League professor, so it’s not all that bad.
Poetry In America: Modernism
School: Harvard University.
Why You Should Apply: If you’re into literature and poetry, then this Harvard University course is for you. During this course, you get to cover the works of American Modernist poets like Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Wallace Stevens.
Apply Here.
Indian and Tibetan River of Buddhism
School: Columbia University.
Why You Should Apply: You might wonder what the Kill Bill movies have to do with an Ivy League course on Buddhism; let me explain how they're linked. Not only is this course cool because it teaches you the history of Buddhism and its principles of social ethics and the mind, but it's also taught by the father of a famous Hollywood star. Uma Thurman's dad, Robert Thurman, will be your professor!
Apply Here.
Sharks
School: Cornell University.
Why You Should Apply: Are you deathly afraid of sharks but still fascinated by the terrifying predators that lurk in the ocean's murky waters? Or maybe you just love Jaws. Well, there's a Cornell University course for you! This course will teach you everything there is to know about the creatures, including their impeccable senses and how they've impacted our history. Live every week like it's Shark Week!
Apply Here.
Hollywood: History, Industry, Art
School: University of Pennsylvania.
Why You Should Apply: If you love watching and analyzing movies, then this course is for you. This University of Pennsylvania course will teach you everything there is to know about the Hollywood industry, from its history to its influences and how politics also plays a role in the film industry.
Apply Here.
The Ethics of Memory
School: Brown University.
Why You Should Apply: Calling all philosophy nerds: Brown University is offering a course on memory, and it explores topics like a personal memory, collective memory and the conflicts of memory. If you love Freud, then don't forget to take this course.
Apply Here.