Continuing education/lifelong learning classes

sparky08

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Mar 24, 2021
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I've always loved learning, reading, documenteries, etc. But I'm wondering about something a bit more structured. Univerities in my state have courses that would seem to appeal to retirees. Non-degree, "Feed your Curiosity", courses that a meet for a few days, some as long as a semester.

SInce retirement, I got an AWS cloud security certificate and took an algerbra course on Coursera. No real reason, just felt like it. I thought it might light a fire to keep going in those areas, but it hasn't. (I don't intend to go back to work, but those are areas of interest).

Has anyone taken adult learning courses? Was it in a field you had some experience with? Or something brand new? What did you think of it?
 
Osher Life Long Learning (OLLI) offers many diverse (no apologies) classes at various Universities. Google OLLI. We have been taking their classes for over 10 years in retirement. history, hiking, language, religions, you name it.
 
It's all about what you are interested in. OLLI (depending on the local university) is excellent. Other community colleges/vocational colleges also offer courses for seniors. Or courses for personal learning - no age requirements. I haven't found one that I didn't like - but again - they are only as good as the local college because they select the instructers.
 
Free online courses

The OG online community-based course aggregator since 2011, when the founder was a Computer Science grad student at Georgia Tech.


- Aggregates online courses: Currently offered, Past archived, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course)
- Course reviews from ClassCentral students
- Earns money when learners subscribe to a course through their link (instead of the provider, for example Coursera), plus advertising

Recommended first course for online learning newbies:
Learning How To Learn, Barbara Oakley and Terry Sejnowski

 
I've done two types of post-retirement learning:

1. Enrolled for my university's program to audit traditional courses. This was great. I have graduate degrees in diverse fields and chose to enroll in course subjects that I've never encountered when focused on my undergrad and graduate majors. I loved it. Settled mostly on one discipline and took most of the undergrad and some of the grad courses. Some of the profs encouraged me to get another Ph.D. No interest in taking tests any more!

2. Enrolled in my university's Olli program. Have done a variety of short courses. Meet a number of people I consider friends and learned some great skills.

It is very interesting to attend traditional classes with the "kiddies" and contrast the experience with my age peers. When attending the larger lecture sections with the kiddies, saw students doing online shopping and social media gazing while in lecture. My first Olli course had an old biddie scolding the instructor for going too fast through the Powerpoint. :)
 
BFF both teaches and takes OLLI courses on a variety of personal interest topics since ER over 10 years ago. Some are concurrent online/in-class, and others are in-person, like Mahjongg. There is only one place offering OLLI courses in BFF’s retirement region.

BFF did not teach at all pre-retirement, and teaches topics not work related or related to graduate degree studies. However, BFF is extremely organized, researches topics exhaustively, has strong time management skills and work ethic, plus great interpersonal skills. Students past and present ask what the next class that BFF is teaching, and some repeat it.
 
We are fans of Road Scholar (nee Elderhostel) for this sort of thing. (About Road Scholar: Our Story) Most of their offerings combine learning with travel but they still have quite a few that are very education-oriented, including languages. Maybe 10 years ago we took a lecture style class in the politics of the middle east, put on by the US foreign service's union. Speakers included a couple of ambassadors and one of the Iran hostages. That class isn't listed any more but this one looks similar: Inside American Diplomacy With the Foreign Service | Road Scholar. We also like the foodie courses.

This is another one I've looked at: https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an...-Movement-Atlanta-Montgomery-Selma-Birmingham Growing up in very white South Dakota, I was never exposed to much of this history.
 
Your local public library might have course offerings. Check with the librarians or the websites.
 
Osher Life Long Learning (OLLI) offers many diverse (no apologies) classes at various Universities. Google OLLI. We have been taking their classes for over 10 years in retirement. history, hiking, language, religions, you name it.

I have two in state universities that offer OLLI. Very cool. Thanks to all that recomended it.
 
subscribing. I want to learn more languages, amongst other things.

I'm up to 387 consecutive days on Duolingo Spanish. I'm not conversational, but can pick up pits and pieces. If I really wanted to improve, I'd have to augment it with something else.
 
I have found some great content on both Coursera.org and Edx.org. On those platforms, I gravitate toward the arts & cultural offerings rather than programming or degree-seeking courses. Our library has The Great Courses online and it is almost overwhelming to try to choose which one to take because there is such a variety. OLLI has some OK offerings where I live but I don't meet the age cut-off yet (it's 50+ for my local program). Our city's parks and rec department has many classes, both fitness and cultural/arts. I took a French class a few years ago and ended up making some friends where we now have a weekly French book group. (Our local Alliance Francaise organization also offers courses and educational events in French -- that's on my list to join at some point). This is a great thread, thanks for starting it OP -- there are some good ideas here!
 
I'm up to 387 consecutive days on Duolingo Spanish. I'm not conversational, but can pick up pits and pieces. If I really wanted to improve, I'd have to augment it with something else.
I have kept moderate fluency since high school. I want to add Portugese, German, French.
 
I have taken a number of courses from Coursera and others. They have varied from constitutional law to math. Lately I have taken a few technical courses in AI in a fruitless effort to understand what is really going on under the hood…
 
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