Massachusetts Institute of Technology is more than just that school from the movie 21 (by the way, the book was better; isn’t it always?). MIT is one of the most prestigious and sought after post-secondary schools in this nation. So, it was a pretty dang decent surprise to find out that they offered free courses to anyone that wished to learn. Yeah, you read me correctly- anyone. No SAT score that reached heaven, no essay, no letters of recommendation, heck, they don’t even require you to register! Check out the details:
MIT developed the idea of OpenCourseWare in 2001 and launched it in 2002. The idea is to have a variety of courses that are offered at MIT available to all people online. OpenCourseWare (OCW) started out with only 50 courses. Now, 7 years later, there are over 1900 courses to choose from- one of them in the welding field.
Taught in 2002, “Welding and Joining Processes” is a course that:
Discusses a wide variety of processes and materials from the viewpoint of their fundamental physical and chemical properties. Specific topics: cold welding, adhesive bonding, diffusion bonding, soldering, brazing, flames, arcs, high-energy density heat sources, solidification, cracking resistance, shielding methods, and electric contacts. Emphasis on underlying science of a given process rather than a detailed description of the technique or equipment.
The course was last taught for OCW in the Fall Term of 2002, but MIT is currently trying to update all of their OCW courses. You should sign up to their website for info on when the welding course will be updated. Until then, there is still a lot of material to go over. You can browse through lecture notes (in downloadable PDF format), see if you can answer some assignment questions, and more.
MIT uses Youtube and other sites to host many videos that they have for OCW.
It takes $10K-$15k to create just one OCW class and can cost more if video content is required. So, be patient about the content update. There are so many courses to choose from while you wait for the welding one to come around again.
Note: OCW courses are all available online, but you can also take a OCW course at the MIT campus for a better hands-on experience.
