How to Educate Yourself - Free Online University (Fundamentals of G...

Yeah, you read that right. Free higher education courses, no strings attached.

Anyone with internet can take it, very little information is needed to sign up and there are literally hundreds of courses to take besides the graphic design one you can take, on many many topics. It is a great way to educate yourself!

We are not well known for free higher education around here in North America, in fact, we are known for how much debt students incur trying to get a degree that 'may or may' not get you a decent job. Many people feel overwhelmed and hopeless when looking into university education, or even just collage, because for most of us without a student loan it is impossible and with a student loan it is a lifetime of debt.

I, personally, refuse to get myself into debt so early on in my life (or at all) and so have chosen the self-taught path. This is both because I am self-driven and because I can't afford it haha, but either way it is rewarding and allows me to build experience and find mentors to learn what I need to learn. It is a pleasant path. I measure my progress against my past self, and my friends, mentors and circumstances teach me. I have no lack of motivation (just a lack of organization) and I have no shortage of challenges or projects to work on. In fact, I think that by learning in this way and especially by writing about it on Steemit, it may be more effective then formal education for many subjects, graphic design included, at least for someone with a mind like mine. Structure is nice but goes against my nature at this point in my life, so I go with the flow and learn what I feel like learning.

So, how can you get on the bandwagon and learn stuff for free?

It is damn simple. Go sign up for Coursera or edX, two of the best websites for free online university education. I have taken many from both, from psychology to art to science. Browse their courses and choose one you like, for me right now I am taking the Fundamentals of Graphic Design by the California Institute of the Arts. There are course from nearly every university out there, from Toronto to Tokyo.

Now, when you go to sign up for a course, it does SAY you have to pay for it. But you don't. There is this lovely thing called an audit where you can access all of the learning materials for free. If you really want a certificate, then you gotta pay a small fee. This can range in price, but is pretty damn affordable compared to university tuition, only costing from $30 to $100 for most courses. You also get to do assignments and have them reviewed, take tests and peer review other peoples work if you pay for the certificate and do the complete course. I think I will consider getting a certificate for this course, which you can do at any time during the course, but for now I will learn it for free and see how it goes! This is also awesome because before you pay for a course you can check it out beforehand.

What does an online course look like? Who teaches you?

Coursera does shorter videos and EDx does longer ones, in general. I just look for a course I want from both of them, and choose the one with professors that I like the best. Sometimes, the professors are unbearable and I can't learn anything because of that, and sometimes they are SUPER awesome like the Psych prof from University of Toronto or the Magic in the Middle ages people from Barcelona. Basically, learning things online means that you get to choose who teaches you instead of getting stuck with a stickler for a teacher.

The only downside to this is that you don't get one on one mentorship, but this can be solved with a little networking and ingenuity on your part. For example, I did a mural apprenticeship a couple months ago with my neighbor, and in exchange for helping him for free I have access to his knowledge and advice in all things art, including graphic design. In this way, I have a mentor I can turn to in real life if I need too and my education will be more complete. Other then my time and effort, its all free. (Not to mention I blog about it to make a living!).

Here are some snap shots from the graphic design course I am taking, completely professional and university quality stuff right here!

This is the introduction page for the whole course, as you can see there are 4 weeks of material here, each with about an hour of videos plus reading materials and assignments to complete. Since I am auditing the course, I just make up my own assignments and play around with art stuff that they are talking about. In a lot of other courses, I used the information for my high school courses.

They also encourage you to collaborate with and talk to your peers who are also taking this course from across the globe. Usually I skip that part, mostly because I am busy learning and doing other things. Plus, I can talk about it on here! Its all pretty self-explanatory, this course stuff.

Here you can see what each week looks like, I have watched most of the first weeks videos and some of the second one. You also have peer reviewed assignments to do if you want the certificate, and get to peer review others assignments! Again, all pretty self explanatory stuff. I have learnt a lot about connotative and denotative images from the first week, and now am moving onto typography.

This is what each week looks like, usually from 5-10 videos (give or take) and some reading material, plus assignments and sometimes quizzes. It changes a little from course to course, but here you can see I am really going to learn a lot about typography in this section, exciting!

So what does an assignment look like when you make it up yourself? Do you grade yourself?

Basically, it looks like whatever you want it to look like (if you are not paying for the course). If you want to really master a subject, then you should design a more complex assignment and find someone to review it for you. If you just wanna practice a bit and have fun, then just do something simple and quick well you are learning. You don't even have to do an assignment or practice at all, though it is always fun!

For this course, I am doing something in between effort and easy. Basically, I am jut sketching well I am listening to the videos so that I can put what I learn into action and understand it better. I will probably show some people my sketchbook at some point and get feedback that way, plus I will show you guys too. I am not doing anything fancy though, its just practice at this point.

As you can see here, I am not so much being a creative image maker but more trying to figure out what connotative and denotative images are, as explained in the course. I started with denotative images, meaning they are exactly what it looks like. The professor described it as trying to boil something down to its true essence, what is it that makes that object recognizable?

I am not entirely pleased with what I have made so far, but I have plenty of time for experimentation. After all, failing is how you learn how to improve! However I really do love the apple heart and its simplicity, that ones a winner!

I drew some apples, some cups, some eyeballs. I sort of am unsure, I think an eye is a denotative images. It is just an eye! But a connotative image is basically like an image with context, and an eyeball can express many different contexts. Is the expression of the eye context in itself?

I'm not sure, and I think it will take me a good amount of practice to really understand these things, and I think I will try out image making techniques with my paints later! I like denotative images for practicing and coming to understand an object, but with denotative images you get to create a story and that is where the real fun comes in! Now, I am moving onto typography as well, which I am not the best at but I hope that I will improve through this course!

Is free online education for you?

Thats up to you to decide! If you can work independently and are curious about a subject (or many) then it probably is, because, why not? There are many benefits from learning things this way, really it is a satisfying way to quench your curiosities and gain a higher level of knowledge, without any serious financial burdens.

Of course, for some things like being a doctor or physicist, you probably want to go to a real university and learn hands on. Getting a degree is not something you can do easily for free online. Though both sites EDx and Coursera have different programs such as 'specializations' or 'micro-masters' and if you pay the small certificate fee you can possibly even gain credits for these courses. They provide a lot of opportunities from across the globe!

They probably have something that interests you. I have taken many courses, from an extensive program by Harvard on EDx on the entire history of China up to the present day (I have not finished that yet!), to Psychology to Biology to graphic design plus lots of Mythology too! There are no shortages of information or courses on here, with the exceptions of pseudo-science stuff that I am also interested in such as herbology and astrology. I am still waiting for an actual free course on that, though there are still a lot of free webinars online that I like to attend. If you come across a free herb course, please do share!

I am glad I could share opportunities like this with a wider community! I hope this helps you learn and pursue your need for knowledge on your own terms.

Here is the edX site

Here is the Coursera site