78 Free MIT Courses for When You’re Craving Libraries, Lectures, and Big Ideas

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78 Free MIT Courses for When You’re Craving Libraries, Lectures, and Big Ideas<br>summer school is in session and it is free

Kel Rakowski<br>Jul 10, 2026

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The late summer of 1997, I matriculated into the only public art school in the United States: Massachusetts College of Art. I was a depressed and anxious teenager. I had applied to exactly one school, and if I didn’t get in, I simply wasn’t going to college.<br>I got in.<br>My application strategy: apply as a sculpture major (because who wants to major in sculpture??!!) and then switch to Graphic Design in year two. The real vision.

the face of an art school drop out, 1999 in Boston<br>I never made it to year two. I barely made it through year one. I was rebelling a bit late, and too depressed, unengaged, and busy partying with bike couriers to really focus on color theory. I did love my sculpture class, though—ironically.<br>It wasn’t that I didn’t like school. As a kid, studying was everything to me. But the newfound freedom of a very big city was all I wanted at that moment.<br>So I dropped out and got a job at an iconic ice cream shop in Harvard Square. Toscanini’s. I worked alongside other dropouts, students, and miscellaneous freaks. It was fun. We listened to Elliott Smith starting at 6am. We served coffee, too.<br>Toscanini’s had an outpost on MIT’s campus. As scoopers, we rotated between locations—Harvard Square, Central Square, and the final stop: MIT. The dreaded Saturday shift meant making milkshakes for about 20 people in a run club. The coach believed in post-run milkshakes for health reasons. It was a slog. No tips.<br>Anyway—I finally found my groove again around age 23, when I entered (with focus and determination) another art school on the North Shore to study graphic design. I graduated at 25—ancient, in my mind.<br>In between, I briefly attended UMass Boston to study literature. My parents lured me in with the promise of my grandmother’s car. It worked—until I dropped out again. I kept the car.<br>What’s missing in all of this is the fantasy I’d had since childhood about college: four blissful years of reading and writing in big libraries, crisp leaves, grassy lawns. None of that materialized. The regret I feel about my education—my mental health at the time, the downward spiral—is a loop I haven’t quite been able to break.<br>I wish I could go back and do it properly. Four tight years in a row. Lifelong friends. A network. Reunions. Alumni events.<br>So now, I turn to DIY education to satisfy that part of me. Although—I’m romanticizing. I have a long list of what I don’t like about college, too. Not to mention the cost, which is the real issue in the U.S.<br>So: I present to you an alternative. Free courses from MIT. Curated by me—classes I want to take, and maybe will one day. A while back, I started a film course that sent me all the way back to the earliest films—Nanook of the North, Buster Keaton.<br>For anyone else yearning for studies and libraries—this is our chance to cosplay academic summer school.

Here’s a list of 78 courses that were of interest to me. There are hundreds of more course options at MIT OpenCourseWare. Please visit, if you want to go deeper.<br>Creativity

The Nature of Creativity<br>Intro to philosophical, psychological, and cognitive theories of what creativity is across human life. Taught Fall 2005

Global Africa: Creative Cultures<br>Examines African and diasporic cultural production—literary, musical, visual, scientific—through anthropology and social theory. Taught Spring 2018

Feeling and Imagination in Art, Science, and Technology<br>Seminar on how feeling and imagination shape creativity in art, science, and tech through philosophy, psychology, and literature. Taught Spring 2004

Writing

Writing Workshop<br>A creative writing workshop designed for overloaded MIT students to carve out space for literary expression. Taught Spring 2008

Writing and Experience: Reading and Writing Autobiography<br>Workshop focused on reading autobiographical texts and writing your own life narratives. Taught Spring 2014

Writing and Reading Poems<br>Introduces the craft of poetry through close reading and the writing of original poems. Taught Fall 2006

Writing and Rhetoric: Designing Meaning<br>Teaches rhetorical strategies for shaping meaning in written communication for different audiences and contexts. Taught Fall 2016

Writing Science Fiction<br>Studio course on reading and writing science fiction, with attention to world-building and speculative ideas. Taught Spring 2016

Writing About Race: Narratives of Multiraciality<br>Explores multiracial identity through reading and crafting narratives about race and self. Taught Fall 2008

Genre Fiction Workshop<br>Workshop on writing in popular genres—mystery, fantasy, SF—while studying conventions and reader expectations. Taught Spring 2013

Writing and Reading the Essay<br>Focuses on the literary essay as a form, combining...