iTunes U anyone?

Has anyone used iTunes U as a way to prepare for their pre-requisite classes or gauge interest in various topics to see if a medical career is for them?


I post a few days ago about trying to figure out whether or not this is right for me. In addition to applying for various volunteer positions at local hospitals, I also was thinking about downloading various Biology and Chemistry lectures to see if I really enjoy this stuff. I took biology last in high school, and only a quarter of gen Chem around 10 years ago in college.


It seems like Berkeley specifically has a large number of video taped lectures available for free downloading through iTunes. You can even watch this semester’s classes that are currently in progress (they get posted about a day after the lecture).


Has anyone done this? If I decide to plunge headfirst into this, it would be this coming Fall so I’d like to spend as much of my time as possible between now and then deciding if this is what I really want to do.

Hi Kev:


I haven’t done what you have suggested, but have only used ITunes U for my current classes for my post-bac. I guess if you can keep it all together, without guidance from a professor, go for it.

I have an Itouch, but would like to DL these onto my desktop. Can you? If so how much are they, even if only for the Itouch or Pod…

  • maddux31 Said:
I have an Itouch, but would like to DL these onto my desktop. Can you? If so how much are they, even if only for the Itouch or Pod..



Maddux,

Definitely. All of the content is free and you can download it and play it on your desktop through iTunes. Just go into iTunes, go to the iTunes store, and then click "iTunes U" on the left menu. Further down on the left you will find "Universities & Colleges" once in iTunes U. I found Berkeley and MIT to have the best selection of biology and chem lectures. The more recent lectures are generally all in video form, and lectures from years past can be found in audio only form.

Once you download the content, you could either sync it to your iPod touch, or watch it through iTunes by going into "Movies".

Enjoy. My wife thinks I'm crazy to watch chem I lectures when I'm still 6 months out from starting classes, but oh well :). I don't expect to learn everything I need through this, but it might give me a nice head start on my first couple of quarters of pre-reqs.

Thanks for the tip! I just downloaded the Berkeley biology lectures. I am looking forward to listening to these on the way to work. . .I guess that makes me a huge nerd, but since I take my bio course online w/ no lecture, I think this will help me a little.

This is great! Are there ones that have video for an option? Just curious…I really appreciate this tid-bit! Awesome!!

  • maddux31 Said:
This is great! Are there ones that have video for an option? Just curious..I really appreciate this tid-bit! Awesome!!



Maddux,

UC Berkeley has a lot of videos from their Fall 2008 and Spring 2009 (in progress) semesters. MIT also had some videos. I've mainly been checking out the Berkeley content.

Excellent!

I know you guys have talked about this, but I thought I would throw one more thought out. Go to youtube and type in general chemistry. One that will pop up is:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhl-YGJt-D4&a mp;fea…


which is case western u.


What a lot of these colleges are doing is post entire semesters of videotaped lectures on the internet.


I’m in General Chemistry II right now and Case Western has been a godsend. The lecture experience there is not nearly as good as on the web. it’s not to say anything bad about my profossr, but buttons like pause and rewing come in very handy. Out of 10, I would give them 10.


Hope that helps, they’re the most realistic snapshot of what the classes look like.

Oh my gosh… I am so excited about this. I had NO clue that iTunes U even existed. Thanks for the info. While it is not exactly prime time, this is an awesome supplement to the review work that am I doing before I return this fall. I haven’t picked up a bio book in 12 years and I am jumping into some upper division stuff. THANK YOU THANK YOU… THANK YOU!!