Education
Furthering you education can be a great experience to provide personal enrichment as well as a way to keep you mind working.
Many community colleges or other higher education institutions offer classes to seniors at reduced tuition or for free. Contact your nearest college to ask about the opportunities, costs and a course listing.
There is an ever-developing alternative to actually attending a school to get your education and it is known as e-learning. Many colleges and universities offer courses that can be taken totally on-line so you can learn at your pace, in the comfort of your home and from colleges located in any part of the country.
The courses offered are virtually unlimited and can include learning a foreign language, world history, music appreciation, quantum physics, accounting, how to play the xylophone, etc. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers nearly 2000 courses, and they are all free. Some courses taught at top universities around the world, including the London School of Economics, can be found.
In order to take classes using your computer, there are some things to consider, including:
- you should have a high-speed internet connection. Many classes are delivered to your computer as video and audio files and these can be rather large. A dial-up connection is too slow to allow for the download of the files.
- you may need to be sure your computer has software to play audio and video files. Some files can be played with a standard web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Exlporer or Mozilla Firefox, but some files may work best with such programs as Apple iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealPayer, and others. Most of these can be installed for free on your computer without difficulty.
- you should know how to create folders and files on your computer in order to keep the course materials organized. This is not a difficult task and there should be an easy tutorial installed on your computer to teach you how to do this.
