Online Liberal Studies Courses for Credit
Students can find a number of free courses in liberal studies topics available online, but these free options likely won't result in college credit. Students who would rather take classes that offer a path to college credit might want to look for online options that charge a small fee in exchange for access to online lessons. Study.com offers this type of learning, with courses made up of short, engaging video lessons and self-assessment quizzes.
Students can find a number of liberal studies courses through Study.com's extensive online resources. Some of the courses available include:
- English 101: English Literature - Study literary terms, old English literature, the Renaissance, romantic poetry, Victorian literature and modernism.
- Humanities 101: Intro to the Humanities - Topics in this course include British Romanticism, literary modernism, American novelists, visual art, architecture and music.
- History 101: Western Civilization I - This course covers such subjects as Ancient Near East history, the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Reformation and colonialism.
Free Online Non-Credited Liberal Studies Courses
Many colleges and universities offer free online liberal studies courses covering subjects including math, literature, the sciences, history and philosophy. Students don't have to register for these free classes, but they also don't receive college credit from the school. Special software such as Adobe Acrobat Reader and mp3 players may be needed to access course materials.
Carnegie Mellon University
- Logic and Proofs introduces students to the symbolism used to represent parts of a logical argument, such as conditionals, conjunctions and disjunctions. Students also learn to make well-formed deductive proofs. Available materials include practice problems, homework assignments and surveys. Students can also access a tutorial for creating derivations in the course's ProofLab.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Much of the required reading for both these courses can be obtained online, but some must be purchased or borrowed from a library.
- How to Stage a Revolution includes topics like Athenian history, the French and Russian Revolutions, types of government and the Communist Party.
- Reading Fiction introduces students to the short stories, novels and poetry of writers including Flannery O'Connor, James Joyce, Mary Shelley and Elizabeth Bishop. Students can write four critical essays to test their knowledge of the course's literary texts.
Find schools that offer these popular programs
- General Studies
- Liberal Arts and Sciences
The Open University
Courses offered by The Open University examine various topics through online lesson transcripts supplemented by illustrations and activities.
- Aberdulais Falls is a two-hour look at how heritage can be preserved and who should make these decisions, using Aberdulais Falls, in South Wales, as an example.
- Introducing Philosophy students will use online texts and summary exercises to learn about reading, writing and discussing philosophy.
- Physics for Humanists explores the basics of relativity and quantum mechanics, including the science behind nuclear weapons. Students can access slides for 24 lectures and download PDF handouts relating to some lecture topics. Exams and solutions are available, along with some homework assignments. Several textbooks are recommended, and links are provided to some supplemental materials.
University of Michigan
- Review of Elementary Spanish teaches basic grammar and vocabulary skills through learning exercises rather than lectures. Students can download podcasts of intensive grammar lessons. Vocabulary and Spanish culture are taught through a Spanish 103 website.
Utah State University
- Intermediate Writing: Research Writing in a Persuasive Mode can hone students basic writing skills and develop their reading, critical thinking and research abilities. Online readings and writing assignments focus on such topics as metaphors and similes, essay organization and writing persuasive arguments. Students can learn to incorporate their audience into their writing and use multimedia resources for research and argumentation.
Yale's free online courses consist of video lectures, many with additional materials and reading lists.
- Foundations of Modern Social Theory provides 25 video lectures covering the works of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Karl Marx and Max Weber. Students learn how these thinkers influenced modern ideas about such topics as authority, justice, sexuality and class structure.