I may have mentioned this before but I have always longed to go to Harvard. That’s been a huge dream of mine since I was small and time and time again my friends, family and even strangers would tell me it couldn’t be done. I don’t have some prestigious last name or a big bank roll and unless you trace my family history back to Charlemagne you’re not going to find any big wigs in my lineage. But today, I proved the naysayers wrong. Today I started with MIT and before long I’ll be going to Harvard.
I’m continuing my education through a Massive Open Online Course, which is is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. Today I took my first class at MIT. I have goosebumps.
I am passionate about learning—not education—but learning. I love absorbing as much information as I possibly can, not to the point of mania, but it’s a passion. When I called my mom the other day and told her I signed up to take classes for free at Harvard she said, “You should just apply for a job.”
Really? I have the opportunity to learn for free and you’re telling me, “just get a job.” So I apply for jobs where I have the skill sets that would be applicable knowing I can work on my business part time, go to school online for free part time and I still hear it daily: Get a job. Get a job. Get a job.
That’s when the old adage by Friedrich Nietzsch comes to mind: “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
Here’s the music that’s playing online: They’re singing a tune of entrepreneurship. They’re singing about how I need to build a vibrant culture of hackers, hipsters and people on the fringe of society because that’s where I’ll get my traction. They’re singing about how I’ll most likely fail but I’ll be able to parlay those skill sets into my next venture, opportunity or job and that’s okay. There is a music in the air about how I need to find my specific niche and listen to their pain points so I can solve them and allow them the opportunity to solve their pains. Still I hear the drums in the background thundering to stop getting an education, slow down on my goals because I’m not getting results and take a safe route through life. I don’t know which is right. I can only listen to my gut, listen to educators at Ivy League schools and go after my goals even if I have to do them part time.
The songs that resonate from Massive Open Online Courses are for me, and for people like me who want to learn without the hindrance of paying. They’re for people who want to learn, not for people who want to be educated.
I plan on building an MBA type curriculum for free and getting the necessary mind set so I can learn to, as Steve Jobs put it, be a pirate instead go joining the Navy. However, hopefully these classes will help me become a pirate but with the skills of a Navy Seal. If I fail? So what. At least I dared to learn.
About the Author
Named Top 100 Leaders by 2012 Magazine, Jasmine Grimm has been nominated for Central Penn Business Journal’s “Top 40 Under 40,” and The Lancaster Chamber’s ATHENA Award.
Jasmine founded Ruby, Inc. a personal styling business that teaches women how to dress for their body types and became a two-time nominee for Inc. Magazine’s Top 30 Under 30 Top Young Entrepreneurs in America. She won the 2013 SCORE Business Development Award, won the Central Penn Business Journal’s Top 25 Women of Influence Award in 2013 and the 2013 Leadership Award from the MS Society.
She has been a popular guest lecturer at the Maastricht Institute of Entrepreneurship and has been featured in Under 30 CEO and Productive Magazine, was the cover story for Harrisburg Magazine and her writing has graced National Geographic Television and Film, Harvard University and more.
She’s a 5,3,8,3 on the Kolbe A Index and her strengths include input, relator, learner, responsibility and achievement.
For more information visit her Google + Page.