iTunes U

Yesterday, I purchased an iPod Nano.  I haven't owned an iPod (or any portable music player) in about 5 years.  The reason being that I successfully destroyed 5 iPods in 3 years when they first came out.  The first thing my boyfriend asked me after I had checked out: "Did you get the accident plan?"  He knows me too well.

He had bought a nano the day before and was still in the "it's-so-beautiful" phase that everyone who buys their first Apple product goes through. He had decided that I needed one too.  After 20 minutes of trying to convince me of this I told him that I would go to the store and look at them (poor decision #1).  At the store the next day, I stood in front of the display for about 30 minutes trying to decide if I really need one.  I decided that I really don't need one, but it's got a video camera! Geez! And I happen to only pay about half of what I expected to pay for my textbooks. Ok, maybe I need it.

I gave in.

Her name is Nancy (aren't I clever, har har).

My real discovery came after I went home to play with Nancy.  I haven't really messed around with/updated iTunes in years.  Pandora has been my main source of music for a while now. And I'm a grad student, I have no money for new music.  Anyways, I stumbled upon iTunes U.  iTunes U is more or less the apple store for a college education.  You can take classes from Yale University for free.  And this is not like they are giving you a book to read.  There are videos of real lectures given at real universities and most come with complementing readings, or you can buy the textbook and do the assigned readings in the syllabus.

If you are an education enthusiast, or just want to learn about a subject without the assignments and grades of a real college course, this is the thing for you.  I tend to have a hard time listening to music while driving, I think this will help with my soon to be 3-hour commute to school on Mondays.

Personally, I've recently become interested in the debate between evolutionists and creationists.  So I downloaded a course on evolution given at Missouri State University and a course on creation from a Seminary.

I also downloaded an Intro to Psychology course from Yale University.