Attend Stanford for free! 13 Free, Online Courses
This fall, Stanford offered three of its most popular computer science classes to the public – for free.
Within weeks, over 400,000 people all around the world signed up.
- Professors give their virtual lectures the same feel as the in-person Stanford experience.
- Online students turn in assignments and taking midterm exams right along with the students paying to take the class in person.
- Professors even take questions from their virtual students and respond to them in live office hours via Google Hangouts.
- Of course, the online students don’t get credit for the classes – Stanford verifies a “badge of completion” instead.
This spring, they’re offering 13 new courses:
Computer Science
- Computer Science 101 taught by Nick Parlante
- Machine Learning taught by Andrew Ng
- Software Engineering for Software as a Service (SaaS) taught by Armando Fox and David Patterson
- Human-Computer Interaction taught by Scott Klemmer
- Natural Language Processing taught by Chris Manning and Dan Jurafsky
- Game Theory taught by Matthew Jackson and Yoav Shoham
- Probabilistic Graphical Models taught by Daphne Koller
- Cryptography taught by Dan Boneh
- Design and Analysis of Algorithms I taught by Tim Roughgarden
Entrepreneurship
- The Lean Launchpad taught by Steve Blank
- Technology Entrepreneurship taught by Chuck Eesley
Civil Engineering
- Making Green Buildings taught by Martin Fischer
Electrical Engineering
- Information Theory taught by Tsachy Weissman
If the university keeps expanding its offerings, an entire Stanford education could soon be available for free online.
No, Facebook Is Not Ruining Your Grades [STUDY]
The study, published last week in Computers in Human Behavior, analyzes 1,839 college students’ survey data about Facebook use and actual grades (as opposed to self-reported grades). It also takes into account students’ high-school GPAs.
- On average, students say they spend 106 minutes on Facebook per day.
- Each increase of 93 minutes beyond 106 minutes correlates with a GPA decrease of .12 grade points
- Posting status updates and using Facebook chat generally means a lower GPA
- While checking to see what friends are up to and sharing links suggests a higher GPA
- The data shows no correlation between time spent on Facebook and time spent studying.
52% of BlackBerry users plan to switch to the new iPhone 4S
College students are the fasted growing smartphone segment – according to a study from Ball State University.
- 52% of BlackBerry users plan to switch to the new iPhone 4S.
- 41% of all mobile consumers plan to purchase the new iPhone 4S.
iPhone 4S - Notification Center, iMessage, Twitter Integration
iPhone 4S - Siri - Reminders, Text, Weather, and more...
UCLA flirts with the idea of allowing co-ed roommates in dorms
UCLA’s newspaper, The Daily Bruin, reported that the university is looking into possible gender-inclusive housing options.
This year, Housing Services approved one room as a pilot for gender-inclusive living spaces. There are no concerns with the situation so far.
Co-Ed Roommates College Dorm
What do you think? Would you want to live in a co-ed dorm? Why or why not?
‘Racist’ UC Berkeley Bake Sale Sparks Outrage
In protest against an Affirmative Action-like bill awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature, U.C. Berkeley College Republicans announced plans to host a satirical Increase Diversity Bake Sale, selling racially price-adjusted pastries on campus, SFGate reported.
A Facebook post announcing plans by a UC Berkeley Republican group to sell baked goods priced according to race, gender and ethnicity – “White/Caucasian” pastries for $2 and “Black/African American” pastries for 75 cents, for example – has drawn outrage on campus:
Today, students in opposition of the bake sale demonstrated in Sproul Plaza at the University of California campus in Berkeley, CA:
Koofers ‘Krowned’ One of DC’s Hottest Companies!
The weather is not the only thing heating up in the nation’s capital! For the second year in a row, Koofers was selected as a recipient of Lead411’s Hottest DC Area Company Awards, being recognized as one of the fastest growing technology companies throughout DC, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Originally over 855 companies were reviewed for the award, and since, 43 companies are now seated amongst the ranks as one of DC’s
“
hottest.”
Building strong and growing, more than 400,000 college students participate in Koofers’ study network, sharing academic course materials, utilizing professor and course ratings, creating flashcards and joining in on relevant Q&A sessions. Koofers was also recognized in 2010 by AlwaysOn as a Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic 100 Winner and ranked as one of the Top 10 DC Startups You Need to Know About.
The Koofers Team is honored to be recognized within Lead411’s outstanding list of talented and growing DC companies. We are grateful for the support from our investors and strong network of students.
Koofers Textbook Center – Buy New, Buy Used, or Rent
This month we announced the launch of our new textbook price comparison tool, a part of our Textbook Center. Textbooks are expensive and as we found last Spring, 1 in 7 books are never used! With a percentage that high who wants to purchase books that are not discounted when they may never use them?
We know that purchasing books can be stressful, and have I mentioned already – expensive?! We want to make your experience easier and show you all the options available so you can make the most educated and financially-sound decision.
Through the Textbook Center you can search for the books you need by entering your university and classes or by looking up a book’s ISBN. Once you select your books our search engine runs and returns all the pricing options for those books. Then, you can choose the vendor that provides you the best option and go through them to purchase your books.
It really is that simple! See how it works with our short demo video.
Students are already seeing on average a saving of $125.00! So be sure to save yourself lots of money and time by going through Koofers’ Textbook Center to find the vendors that will give you the best deals!
Koofers.com Gets A Makeover!
Hi Friends! Apologies for the summer hiatus, but once you understand the reason for it I’m sure you will be equally as excited as we are. This summer everyone at Koofers Headquarter worked diligently on improvements to the Koofers company website. During the 2009-2010 academic year our service at schools and number of users grew exponentially. We realized we needed to make certain functions of our site more user friendly and accessible. In addition to our ideas for improvements we received a lot of positive feedback from you that we took to heart. As a result we spent this summer redesigning our site to be more intuitive and offer more collaborative tools for students to share information across universities.
Check out our press release to learn more and experience these changes by logging in today!
Students Today: Lazy or Under-Challenged?
Today’s technologies and connectedness from social media has increased the possibilities for distractions among college students. However, many of these new technologies also enable students to more efficiently gather information and compute data. So, it is not shocking that a recent report from the University of California found that even though students are studying about 10 hours less a week then students did in 1961, it is not because today’s students are any less focused on their studies.
Instead, the study found that the greatest decline in studying took place before computers were all over college campuses and owned by every student. Between 1961 and 1981 study times fell from 24.4 to 16.8 hours per week. In the last 30 years, by comparison, it fell by just two hours.
In The Atlantic Wire, Max Fisher delves into some of the comments left on Kevin Drum’s Mother Jones blog post about this study. Interestingly enough several commenters seem to believe it is the result of professors not sufficiently challenging students. This would certainly complement the theory that it is not distractions from technologies that cause students to study less.
Among some of the most notable comments that Fisher finds are:
Arguing that professors require less effort from students:
- There is an increase in temporary adjunct faculty who are vulnerable to course evaluations.
- More schools have adopted pass-fail classes and so students don’t have to work as hard to get a specific grade.
Arguing that students focus less on their studies:
- Grades are becoming less important than extracurricular activities to graduates searching for jobs.
- More students are working part-time to pay their way through school.
- Students today read less and are less willing to complete the recommended reading assigned by professors.
The numerous theories give rise to many unanswered questions about study habits. It seems apparent, however, that it is difficult to accuse today’s students of sheer laziness. What do you think: Are students studying less because they are lazy or under-challenged?
What do employers look for on Facebook? [Top 10 List]
Here’s what NOT to post on your Facebook if you ever plan on getting a job! Be sure keep all your other social networks (Twitter, MySpace, etc.) professional too.
So in short, don’t post these types of things:
Drinking Photos
Lying about qualifications
…or else…
:-(