OCW Stories
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Students | Educators | Self Learners | OCW Supporters
Students
Kunle Adejumo
Student
Nigeria
Kunle Adejumo is finishing his fourth year of engineering studies at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria. By all rights, he should now be in his fifth and final year, but local strikes and instability in Nigeria have added almost a full year to his studies at Ahmadu Bello. Read more.
Clinton Blackburn
MIT Student
United States
In between studying for classes and working at the MIT Computing Help Desk, MIT senior Clinton Blackburn volunteers as an ambassador for OCW during his travels to Africa. Read more.
Maria Karamitsou
Student
Greece
A fifth-year civil engineering student at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, Maria Karamitsou spent the summer of 2005 working at an institute of seismology, studying earthquake-resistant construction techniques. Read more.
Juan Lara
Student
Mexico
In 1998 Juan Eduardo Leal Lara's father, an industrial electronics engineer, was selected by the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico to establish a Mechatronics Program for Mexican universities. When he told his then eight-year-old son about this combination of mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, and computer engineering, Lara's interest was immediate. Read more.
Mat Peterson
Student
United States
Working with the material on OCW gave Peterson confidence in his ability to study at the MIT level, but even more importantly, provided a window into an instructional approach that appealed to him. Read more.
Educators
Richard Hall
Educator
Australia
Richard Hall received a Ph.D. in computer science from LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, in 2002. Shortly thereafter, he found himself playing a different role in LaTrobe's laboratories and lecture halls: teaching courses in introductory information systems, beginning microprocessors, and advanced computer-aided software engineering. Read more.
Triatno Yudo Harjoko
Educator
Indonesia
Triatno Yudo Harjoko has a long and close association with the University of Indonesia in Depok, Indonesia. A graduate of the institution, Harjoko has also been a professor of architecture at the school since 1979, and is currently head of the architecture department. In addition, Harjoko has designed several of the university's buildings, including the expansive Faculty of Engineering complex, and the stunning University Mosque. Read more.
Shirley Harrell
Educator
United States
Shirley Harrell, an assistant professor in the School of Management at Cambridge College in Cambridge, MA, speaks with pride of the educational environment of her institution. As an open-enrollment school, she explains, Cambridge has "a gate at the end, not the beginning," and welcomes students from a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and abilities. Read more.
Kian Wah Liew
Educator
Malaysia
A secondary school mathematics teacher in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Kian Wah Liew introduces his 18-year-old students to a range of complex concepts, such as matrices, determinants, and differential equations. Though his lessons are conducted in Mandarin, the students use an English textbook - which tends to make Liew's life more complicated, since his students possess a wide range of abilities in both English and mathematics. Read more.
Amy Santee
Educator
United States
Homeschooling her daughters means that Amy Santee knows how to think outside the box. She takes them on field trips and finds a wide variety of outside activities for them like ballet and choir. Her freedom to step outside the classroom keeps the lessons fresh and exciting. "I realize that not all learning is fun," says Santee. "But I strive to make as much as possible enjoyable and educational at the same time." Read more.
Gilbert Strang
MIT Mathematics professor
United States
Gilbert Strang was an early supporter of OCW, envisioning the benefits of making MIT courses freely available and accessible online. "A big part of my life is to open mathematics to students everywhere," says Strang, MIT class of 1955 and a Mathematics professor at the Institute. Read more.
Robert Talbert
Educator
United States
When Robert Talbert, associate professor of mathematics and computing science at Franklin College, was looking for inspiration and resources for his CMP 150 Computer Tools for Problem Solving course, he turned to MIT OpenCourseWare's 6.00 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming course, taught by Professors Eric Grimson and John Guttag. Read more.
François Viruly
Educator
South Africa
As director of Viruly Consulting – a leading South African real estate analysis firm – property economist François Viruly has acquired extensive experience in the South African commercial real estate market over the past decade. Viruly is passionate about his field, and makes an effort to share his expertise with students at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, as well as the University of Cape Town and the University of Pretoria. Read more.
Karen Willcox
MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics professor
United States
In her first year, Willcox was surprised and disappointed to find that many of her students' math skills were less proficient than she expected. She has been working ever since both to better understand this phenomenon and to counteract it. Read more.
Self Learners
Harry Crissy
Self Learner
United States
As an expert in community development in South Carolina, Harry Crissy does much of his job on his feet. By combining his shoe-leather commitment to improving underserved areas with OCW courses in systems analysis, Crissy has helped entrepreneurs get projects off the ground and collaborated to transform a vacant building into a facility for a minority-based technical school's culinary program. Read more.
ENERSA
Self Learner
Haiti
Entrepreneurs Jean-Ronel Noel and Alex Georges are working to bring renewable energy to communities throughout Haiti. Through their company, Enersa they planned to create solar panels to serve the needs of their country, but in their research and development process, they required guidance in electrical engineering. Read more.
Wendy Ermold
Self Learner
United States
Physicist Wendy Ermold's career in as a researcher at University of Washington's Polar Science Center has taken her places some would never dream of going - at least not without a very heavy coat. Read more.
Harihar Subramanian
Self Learner
India
Harihar Subramanian is an applications engineer with the Bangalore design center of a California-based high technology start-up. He first learned of OCW as a student at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Since then, he has consulted OCW for information in a variety of areas such as business, physics, electronics, and essay writing. Read more.
Supporters
Jon Gruber
MIT Class of 1964 and OCW supporter
United States
An enthusiasm for what's "cutting edge" in technology has molded Jon Gruber's life, and has now made its mark on MIT OpenCourseWare. Read more.
Gene Sprouse
MIT Class of 1963 and OCW supporter
United States
Gene Sprouse always had a passion for science and physics. Originally encouraged by his high school physics teacher, Sprouse nurtured his enthusiasm for physics through college and graduate school. Read more.
