Auditing undergrad/grad liberal arts courses

Does anyone know of a DL institution that offers a wide array of liberal arts courses under an "audit" option (i.e., reduced tuition, few if any assignment requirements, etc.). I'm pretty "set" in my career and don't need the credential, but would love to go back and re-study all those core liberal arts courses I didn't take very seriously back in my undergraduate days. Thanks for any help!

 

Which core liberal arts classes are you talking about? Do you want only audit courses or are you looking to do accounting courses over?

 

Look at Ohio University. They have credit by examination. You study the material and take one test.

http://www.ohiou.edu/independent/ccewords.htm

 

By "liberal arts" I was thinking about history, philosophy, theology, fine arts, languages, social sciences, natural sciences... that type of thing.

 

Check out this website, it might be helpful

http://geocities.com/BA_in_4_Weeks

 

A great resource to do this would be MIT Open Courseware.

I love this site.

Tony

 

Interesting twist-- auditing a DL course?

It seems to me that if you're looking at DL courses, you're specifically UN-interested in "in-the-chair" lectures. That, to me, would be the principal benefit of auditing-- formally or informally-- a university-level course, particularly if you have access to the big names in your field of interest. (For example, nearby Princeton allows non-credit auditing; if you've always wanted to take a course from John Nash, this might be worth the a) cost and b) serf-like status that auditors are accorded under the program's policies.)

But in a DL medium, what's really left? The reading? The professor's course notes?

Long shot, but it costs nothing but your time/postage/phone call: Locate some DL courses that interest you, irrespective of the school's policy re: auditing. Appeal to the ego: Contact the professors directly, express your interest, and see if they'll make a copy of the syllabus, book list, et cetera available to you (ala the MIT practice already described.) The worst that can happen is a not-so-polite declination.

If, after the fact, you decide that you'd like to capitalize on your new-found (or newly-honed) knowledge, you can always apply that learning to testing or portfolio assessment options for credit.

 

Why not just take 'em one course at a time, for credit? You'll read more critically, you'll do some careful writing, and you're bound to learn more. Can't be that hard, either: nobody ever accused Thomas Edison State of being the Sorbonne in its intellectual demands.

Plus after a couple of credits, you might get the degree-collection bug like many of the posters here.

Peter