Why Online Education Hasn’t Replaced On-Campus Credentials

Ten years ago, I finished a personal project to try to learn MIT’s computer science curriculum on my own. Strangely enough, the project was both a resounding success and an abject failure.

The project was successful as I largely did what I set out to do. I managed to hew closely to the content in MIT’s undergraduate computer science curriculum. And I managed to pass most of the final exams for the courses. While there’s plenty of room for critiquing aspects of my self-grading or workarounds for missing materials, there’s no…