If tuition at Columbia is around $45,000 a year, and the average Columbia student takes approximately five classes a semester, then each student spends about $4,500 per class. (Please don't kvetch about any math errors, this is coming from someone who couldn't get through the last Stars and Atoms problem set without crying a little in despair).
So now that you've emptied your life savings piggy bank, what would you say if someone told you that that the course Financial Engineering and Risk Management is absolutely free---online. In today's paper, Lillian Chen tackles just that question:
It’s Columbia’s first major venture into the online education market in a decade.
“We’re doing a pilot program in the MOOC stage—massive open online course—and the idea there is to see … the potential of the MOOC stage for education,” said Sree Sreenivasan, who was appointed Columbia’s first chief digital officer in July.
It's currently just the Financial Engineering course and a Natural Language Processing class, but these classes will consist of video lectures, interactive exercises, and homework assignments. And you wouldn't even have to leave your cardboard box room.
Jealous that you're not a Financial Engineer yet? Here are some classes that we think should be offered online as well.
