Thrun has left Stanford to create an online university called “Udacity,” which is currently offering one course, “CS 101: Building A Search Engine.” The pitch is this: “Learn programming in seven weeks. We’ll teach you enough about computer science that you can build a web search engine like Google or Yahoo!”
Geezer that I am, I’ve never wanted to build a search engine, but, well, geezers are not the future, and maybe Udacity is. It’s certainly made Felix change his tune, because just last week he was pissing all over Mitt Romney’s suggestion that a for-profit university might work better than the existing non-profits. For whatever reason, Felix seemed only capable of thinking about universities in terms of bricks and mortar (and ivy). To his credit, he’s realized, after listening to Thrun, that there might be a better way.
Afterwords
As is fairly well known, MIT lets you audit many courses online. I was able to follow the Introduction of Biology course online without much difficulty, even though my last formal contact with the subject involved dissecting a frog.
