Ongoing education

It's never too old to learn. Funny how it's always people older than thirty who say that.

But it's true, and I'm putting my brain where my mouth is this fall. I've been looking into an online learning environment called edX after seeing its president on a July episode of The Colbert Report. It's a variety of college-level courses put together by professionals from a number of prestigious universities, like MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley, then placed online. People can take them for free, working at their own pace within the time frame the course provides, usually 6-12 weeks.

The one course I know for sure I'm going to try is called Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science. Since that doesn't start until October, I'm going to choose one or maybe two more to do this fall. The problem is narrowing down the ones I like. My short list still has a dozen options on it.

It seems like such an excellent opportunity, though. Some of them could be the basis for future stories. Others would just be for fun. Regardless, I see a lot of this in my near future.