I Got A Free Education From TikTok
Day 57 of self-isolation. I have finally put my curious, crawling one-year-old to bed, and now it is time for me to relax. And by ‘relax,’ I mean watch TikTok videos in bed for an amount of time that I would prefer not to admit. I’m willing to bet that I am not alone in this, and that millions of other bored-in-the-house, in-the-house-bored quarantiners are spending their nights the same way that I am. And yes, that’s a TikTok reference. I know, I’m feeling a little *cringe* right now, too.
After scrolling through a few teenage dance videos, some too-real parenting humor, and inundating my friends’ inboxes with pointless challenges, whipped coffee recipes, and workout videos that we will never do, I stumbled across something different on my For You Page. It was a video of a woman dancing, pretty horribly (no surprise — that seems to be a common theme on this app), to a popular song I’d heard on TikTok many times before. It was one of those videos where the creator dances around while pointing to different text boxes as they appear all over the screen to the beat of the music. If you’re a TikTok user, you know the type I’m referring to. People use this technique on the app all the time, using it to display anything from their diet plan to their unsolicited advice. In this woman’s video, the technique was used to display a list of free online certificate programs currently being offered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Normally, I would think to myself ‘that’s cool,’ and keep scrolling, but something compelled me to stop and watch the text bubbles go by, waiting to see if any of the certificate programs interested me. I watched courses from like Essentials of Global Health by Yale University, Introduction to Sustainability by the University of Illinois, Fundamentals of Digital Marketing by Google, and The Language of Design by California Institute of Arts float by until The Science of Exercise hosted by the University of Colorado Boulder popped up on the screen. I recently earned my certification to become an indoor cycling instructor, and had been wanting to learn more about the functions of the body during exercise ever since. Unfortunately, every program I had heard about was much too expensive. I immediately took a screenshot of the video and headed to Google to research whether or not this woman was telling the truth. Did I really just find a credible program (for FREE) through TikTok, of all places? Certainly there has to be a catch…
Believe it or not, this TikTok user was absolutely right. All of these universities really were offering completely free certificate programs. I scrolled through links to courses from an endless list of universities, such as Harvard, Cornell, Berklee College of Music, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, MIT, Stanford, and so on. When I typed in the certificate I was interested in actually pursuing, I was directed to University of Colorado Boulder’s page on Coursera.org. I had never heard of this website before, but after a quick browse, it appeared there were hundreds of thousands of courses available for little to no cost.
When I became pregnant at 23, I thought that my dreams of continuing my education were dead. How could I possibly work forty hours a week, raise a child, and successfully complete online courses? I didn’t think it was a possibility for me anymore. Until now.
I clicked on Coursera’s link for The Science of Exercise, and as if this website somehow knew it was going to be now or never for me, the small yellow box under the title read: COURSE STARTS TODAY. I clicked ‘enroll for free,’ and immediately started watching the introductory video, right there in the same spot I had been watching lame TikToks ten minutes prior.
The certificate program is a four-week course. Each week, the instructor presents two hours’ worth of lectures, broken down into several ten-minute videos. This makes it very easy for me to fit my coursework in during my son’s nap times or rare free moments throughout the day. Every video on Coursera is transcribed, which is extremely convenient should you miss a word or definition while the lecturer is speaking. Of course, you can always pause the lecture as well. The website also provides a ‘save note’ feature, which allows you to essentially screenshot certain parts of the instructor’s presentation to be saved in the same window as the lesson.
Throughout each video, there are simple quiz questions for the student to answer in order to gauge their understanding. These questions are presented in the form of true/false, multiple choice, and short answer. I found that these small quizzes broke up the lecture nicely, kept me engaged, and helped me stay on track.
The course’s instructor, Robert Mazzeo, has been a researching and teaching exercise science for over forty years, and is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, which is the largest sports medicine and exercise science organization in the world. He conducted this course at an easy-to-follow pace, and was very engaging. I enjoyed his use of graphics, tables, and graphs to illustrate his point, and he always gave clear, concise definitions that made vocabulary terms easy to remember. As someone who hasn’t taken a Chemistry class since Undergrad in 2016, I still found this course doable. I would definitely recommend it to anyone hoping to learn more about exercise science.
If you’re still waiting for the catch, there truly isn’t one. When I first signed up for the course, I was given the choice to ‘purchase the graded option for $49.’ I declined, because the website ensured that you would still receive your certificate if you selected the free option (and also because I’m unemployed, like millions of other Americans). I later received an email from the University of Colorado Boulder, asking to support their efforts in providing free education worldwide by paying the $49. The email also stated that the university recognizes “that not all learners can afford to pay. However, through the support of those learners that can contribute, the University of Colorado Boulder will continue to create and support open, high-quality, and low-cost educational opportunities for people around the world.”
I was extremely satisfied with the education I received from Dr. Mazzeo and the University of Colorado Boulder, and I am feeling more determined than ever to continue my education. And I will never feel guilty for spending too much time on TikTok ever again.
Sources:
The Science of Exercise, Robert Mazzeo, The University of Colorado Boulder. May 2020.
TikTok video: @jenonajetplane
