An Architect Breaks Down the 5 Most Common Styles of College Campus

in Architecture, History | August 19th, 2024

Every now and again on social media, the obser­va­tion cir­cu­lates that Amer­i­cans look back so fond­ly on their col­lege years because nev­er again do they get to live in a well-designed walk­a­ble com­mu­ni­ty. The orga­ni­za­tion of col­lege cam­pus­es does much to shape that expe­ri­ence, but so do the build­ings them­selves. “Peo­ple often say that col­lege is the best four years of your life,” says archi­tect Michael Wyet­zn­er in the new Archi­tec­tur­al Digest video above, “but it was also like­ly that it was some of the best archi­tec­ture you’ve been around as well.” He goes on to iden­ti­fy, explain, and con­tex­tu­al­ize the five build­ing styles most com­mon­ly seen on Amer­i­can col­lege cam­pus­es: colo­nial, Col­le­giate Goth­ic, mod­ernism, bru­tal­ism, and post­mod­ernism.

For exam­ples of colo­nial cam­pus archi­tec­ture, look no fur­ther than the Ivy League, only one of whose schools was built after the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence — whose author, Thomas Jef­fer­son, lat­er designed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia, draw­ing much inspi­ra­tion (if not always first-hand) from ancient Greece and Rome. “Iron­i­cal­ly, after the US declared inde­pen­dence, new­er schools want­ed to look old­er,” says Wyet­zn­er, a desire that spawned the endur­ing Col­le­giate Goth­ic style. Con­struct­ed out of mason­ry and brick, its ear­li­est build­ings tend to pick and choose fea­tures of gen­uine Goth­ic archi­tec­ture while mix­ing and match­ing them with the design lan­guages of oth­er times and places. More recent exam­ples have been stren­u­ous­ly faith­ful by com­par­i­son, incor­po­rat­ing gar­goyles and all.

When they arise, archi­tec­tur­al styles tend to align them­selves with the old or the new, and it was the lat­ter that over­took col­lege cam­pus­es after the Sec­ond World War. Take the Illi­nois Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, which was designed whole by no less a Bauhaus-cre­den­tialed mod­ernist than Lud­wig Mies van der Rohe. Mod­u­lar, flat-roofed, and built with plen­ty of exposed brick, glass, and steel, its build­ings proved influ­en­tial enough that “near­ly every high school in the Unit­ed States that was built in the fifties and six­ties” was designed in more or less the same way — albeit with­out the ear­ly utopi­an mod­ernist spir­it, which by that point had devolved into an indus­tri­al empha­sis on “ratio­nal­ism, func­tion­al­i­ty, and hygiene.”

After mod­ernism came bru­tal­ism, the style of the least-beloved build­ings on many a cam­pus today. Coined by Le Cor­busier, the style’s name comes from béton brut, or raw con­crete, vast quan­ti­ties of which were used to shape its hulk­ing and, depend­ing on how you feel about them, either drea­ry or awe-inspir­ing struc­tures. The aes­thet­i­cal­ly promis­cu­ous post­mod­ernist build­ings that began appear­ing in the six­ties and mul­ti­plied in the sev­en­ties and eight­ies were more play­ful and his­tor­i­cal­ly aware — or all too play­ful and his­tor­i­cal­ly aware, as their detrac­tors would put it. If you think back to your own col­lege days, you can prob­a­bly remem­ber spend­ing time in, or around, at least one exam­ple of each of these styles, because large US col­lege cam­pus­es have, over time, become rich antholo­gies of archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ry. Would that most Amer­i­cans could say the same about the places they live after grad­u­a­tion.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Why Peo­ple Hate Bru­tal­ist Build­ings on Amer­i­can Col­lege Cam­pus­es

Archi­tect Breaks Down the Design Of Four Icon­ic New York City Muse­ums: the Met, MoMA, Guggen­heim & Frick

College Presidents Lampooned on Saturday Night Live’s Cold Open

in Comedy, Current Affairs | December 10th, 2023

Ouch!

Why People Hate Brutalist Buildings on American College Campuses

in Architecture, History | November 8th, 2023

Many Amer­i­cans receive their intro­duc­tion to the style known as Bru­tal­ism in col­lege. This owes less to cours­es in twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry archi­tec­ture than to uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus­es them­selves, which tend to have been expand­ed or even whol­ly con­struct­ed in the decades imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the Sec­ond World War. As Vox’s Dean Peter­son explains in the new video above, its vet­er­ans returned home eager to receive the ter­tiary edu­ca­tion to which the G.I. Bill enti­tled them, which “neces­si­tat­ed that uni­ver­si­ties build new facil­i­ties to han­dle bal­loon­ing admis­sions. And with so many new build­ings being need­ed, what did archi­tects of the day turn to? Bru­tal­ism.”

“Not just a style of archi­tec­ture but an entire aes­thet­ic ethos,” Bru­tal­ism had devel­oped through inspi­ra­tion from the work of Charles-Édouard Jean­neret, bet­ter known as Le Cor­busier. While oth­er archi­tects had employed con­crete before him, he was the one to make the bold choice of leav­ing it exposed on the sur­face in its raw form: béton brut, to use the term that gave the move­ment its name.

To qual­i­fy under the rubric of this “new Bru­tal­ism,” as archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ri­an Reyn­er Ban­ham (lat­er to become famous for his ultra-mod­ern view of Los Ange­les) referred to it, a struc­ture should demon­strate “mem­o­ra­bil­i­ty as an image,” “clear exhi­bi­tion of struc­ture,” and “val­u­a­tion of mate­ri­als ‘as found’ ” — in con­trast to the nine­teen-fifties’ pro­lif­er­a­tion of seem­ing­ly fea­ture­less glass-sheathed sky­scrap­ers designed by mod­ernists like Lud­wig Mies van der Rohe and his many imi­ta­tors.

“Bru­tal­ist build­ings strove for hon­esty in their mate­ri­als and struc­ture,” says Peter­son. “They showed you how they were con­struct­ed.” Though acclaimed in their day as built state­ments of a break from the staid past into a whol­ly reimag­ined future, many cam­pus Bru­tal­ist build­ings in the Unit­ed States sub­se­quent­ly fell into dis­re­pair, owing to the eco­nom­ic down­turn of the sev­en­ties and the resul­tant laps­es into “deferred main­te­nance” — which, deferred long enough, shades into planned demo­li­tion. Such has been the case with Evans Hall, the sta­tis­tics, eco­nom­ics, and math­e­mat­ics build­ing at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, which, since its con­struc­tion in 1971, played an impor­tant part in the his­to­ry of com­put­er sci­ence, not least as the node through which the whole of the west coast con­nect­ed to ARPANET, the mil­i­tary-built pre­cur­sor to the inter­net.

Today, objec­tions to Evans Hal­l’s Bru­tal­ist aes­thet­ics, as well as to its loca­tion in front of the San Fran­cis­co Bay and its poor earth­quake-safe­ty rat­ing (that last being fair­ly com­mon among UC Berke­ley’s struc­tures), have led to its being emp­tied out with an eye toward replace­ment. Though it may be too late for Evans Hall, much of Amer­i­ca’s Bru­tal­ist her­itage can still be reha­bil­i­tat­ed. “Be patient,” says archi­tec­ture pro­fes­sor Tim­o­thy Rohan (author of a study of Amer­i­can Bru­tal­ist Paul Rudolph). “Just because you find some­thing unfash­ion­able at the moment does­n’t mean you should erad­i­cate it.” This is not, per­haps, advice par­tic­u­lar­ly well-suit­ed to col­lege stu­dents, but giv­en the like­li­hood of their expo­sure to Bru­tal­ism not just on cam­pus but also on Insta­gram, they may turn out to be its best hope yet.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Every­thing You Ever Want­ed to Know About the Beau­ty of Bru­tal­ist Archi­tec­ture: An Intro­duc­tion in Six Videos

Why Do Peo­ple Hate Mod­ern Archi­tec­ture?: A Video Essay

How the Rad­i­cal Build­ings of the Bauhaus Rev­o­lu­tion­ized Archi­tec­ture: A Short Intro­duc­tion

The World Accord­ing to Le Cor­busier: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to the Most Mod­ern of All Archi­tects

A is for Archi­tec­ture: 1960 Doc­u­men­tary on Why We Build, from the Ancient Greeks to Mod­ern Times 

An Espres­so Mak­er Made in Le Corbusier’s Bru­tal­ist Archi­tec­tur­al Style: Raw Con­crete on the Out­side, High-End Parts on the Inside

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Neil Gaiman Speaks at the Alternative Graduation Held at a College Resisting Ron DeSantis’ Hostile Takeover

in Current Affairs, Education | May 23rd, 2023

His pres­i­den­tial cam­paign has end­ed before it start­ed. But Ron DeSan­tis is the last to know it. And so he con­tin­ues pan­der­ing to Trump’s base. After ship­ping migrants to Martha’s Vine­yard, the Flori­da gov­er­nor now picks cost­ly fights with Dis­ney, his state’s sec­ond largest employ­er; bans books in Flori­da pub­lic schools; and exerts polit­i­cal pres­sure on the state’s pub­lic col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties.

At the New Col­lege of Flori­da, DeSan­tis is using the cud­gel of gov­ern­ment to trans­form a tra­di­tion­al lib­er­al arts col­lege into a con­ser­v­a­tive-lean­ing insti­tu­tion. If you’re not fol­low­ing what’s hap­pen­ing at New Col­lege, read this pro­file in The New York­er. The arti­cle will help set the stage for the video above.

There, you will see author Neil Gaiman speak­ing at an alter­na­tive grad­u­a­tion arranged by New Col­lege stu­dents. Not want­i­ng to par­tic­i­pate in the offi­cial grad­u­a­tion archi­tect­ed by the school’s new con­ser­v­a­tive boss­es (the event fea­tured Scott Atlas, the radi­ol­o­gist who became Trump’s con­tro­ver­sial Covid “expert,” how inspir­ing!), the stu­dents arranged an alt grad­u­a­tion and invit­ed Gaiman to speak via video. Through a per­son­al sto­ry, The Sand­man author remind­ed the stu­dents of the lib­er­al arts val­ues that under­gird the school, and left stu­dents with some time­ly advice: “You must fight for what you believe to be right while nev­er los­ing your sense of humor or your sense of pro­por­tion.” Here’s to hop­ing that New Col­lege out­lasts the erst­while pres­i­den­tial con­tender.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

John Waters’ RISD Grad­u­a­tion Speech: Real Wealth Is Life With­out A*Holes

David Byrne’s Grad­u­a­tion Speech Offers Trou­bling and Encour­ag­ing Advice for Stu­dents in the Arts

Coffee College: Everything You Wanted to Know about Coffee Making in One Lecture

in Food & Drink | February 8th, 2023

No mat­ter how much cof­fee you drink, you nev­er drink the same cof­fee twice. Cof­fee-drinkers under­stand this instinc­tive­ly, even those who only drink their cof­fee at home using the same beans and the same brew­ing process day in and day out. For even in the most con­trolled cof­fee-mak­ing con­di­tions we can achieve in our every­day lives, vari­a­tions have a way of creep­ing in. End­less scruti­ny of those vari­a­tions is all in a day’s work for some­one like Matt Perg­er, who’s come out on or near the top of sev­er­al barista cham­pi­onships, and who found­ed the online cof­fee-edu­ca­tion ser­vice Barista Hus­tle and its asso­ci­at­ed Youtube chan­nel.

In the chan­nel’s most pop­u­lar video by far, Perg­er deliv­ers an 80-minute lec­ture on “advanced cof­fee mak­ing” at Assem­bly Cof­fee in Lon­don. After cov­er­ing the adjec­tives used to describe the fla­vor of cof­fee in gen­er­al — from “weak,” “del­i­cate,” and “tea-like” to “lus­cious,” “bit­ter,” and “over­whelm­ing” — he moves on to the vocab­u­lary of extrac­tion.

The most impor­tant stage in the cof­fee-mak­ing process as far as the result­ing taste is con­cerned, extrac­tion is accom­plished by putting hot water through cof­fee grounds, in whichev­er man­ner and with whichev­er device you may choose to do it. Weak­er meth­ods of extrac­tion result in “salty” or “veg­e­tal” tastes, and stronger meth­ods in “astrin­gent” or “pow­dery” ones.

As in so many pur­suits, the most desir­able out­comes lie in the mid­dle of the spec­trum.  Just how to achieve that per­fect­ly “trans­par­ent,” “nut­ty,” “bal­anced,” and even “sweet” cup of cof­fee con­sti­tutes the dri­ving pro­fes­sion­al ques­tion for Perg­er and baris­tas like him. Clear­ly pos­sessed of a taste for rig­or, he explains the effects of every­thing from the design of roast­ers and grinders to the tech­niques of brew­ing and pour­ing while cit­ing the find­ings of exper­i­ments and blind taste tests — and even acknowl­edg­ing when pieces of expen­sive cof­fee-mak­ing gear yield no demon­stra­ble quan­ti­ta­tive ben­e­fit. True cof­fee afi­ciona­dos who have an end­less appetite for this kind of talk may find them­selves tempt­ed to sign up for Barista Hus­tle’s online cours­es, but even more so to brew anoth­er cup for them­selves.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Every­thing You Want­ed to Know About Cof­fee in Three Min­utes

How to Make Cof­fee in the Bialet­ti Moka Pot: The “Ulti­mate Techique”

The Birth of Espres­so: The Sto­ry Behind the Cof­fee Shots That Fuel Mod­ern Life

Your Burn­ing Ques­tions About Cof­fee Answered by James Hoff­mann

10 Essen­tial Tips for Mak­ing Great Cof­fee at Home

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

YouTube & Arizona State University Team Up to Offer Online Courses for Real College Credits

in MOOCs, Online Courses, YouTube | February 2nd, 2023

A recent Pew Research Cen­ter sur­vey found that near­ly one in five Amer­i­can teenagers is on Youtube “almost con­stant­ly.” Ten years ago, the fig­ure sure­ly would­n’t have been that high, and twen­ty years ago, of course, Youtube did­n’t exist at all. But today, no enter­prise direct­ed at teenagers can afford to ignore it: that goes for pop music and fash­ion, of course, but also for edu­ca­tion. Most kids just start­ing col­lege are on Youtube, but so are those about to start col­lege, those tak­ing time off from col­lege, and those unsure of whether they’re will­ing or able to go to col­lege at all. Hence Col­lege Foun­da­tion, a new exten­sion of Youtube chan­nel Study Hall, the prod­uct of a part­ner­ship between Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty, YouTube and Crash Course.

Crash Course has long pro­duced video series that, both enter­tain­ing­ly and at length, cov­er sub­jects taught in school from his­to­ry to lit­er­a­ture to phi­los­o­phy and beyond. The Col­lege Foun­da­tion’s pro­gram will make it pos­si­ble not just to learn on Study Hall, but to earn real col­lege cred­its as well.

“Stu­dents who are inter­est­ed in for­mal course­work beyond watch­ing the videos may pay a $25 fee to enroll in an ASU online course that includes inter­act­ing with oth­er stu­dents and instruc­tors,” writes Inside High­er Edu­ca­tion’s Susan D’Agosti­no. Upon com­ple­tion of the course, “the stu­dent can decide whether they would like to pay $400 to record the grade and receive ASU cred­it.”

Enroll­ment is now open for the first four Col­lege Foun­da­tions cours­es, Eng­lish Com­po­si­tion, Col­lege Math, U.S. His­to­ry and Human Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, all of which begin on March 7th. (Those who sign up before that start date will receive a $50 dis­count.) “Once you’re in a course, you can con­tact a suc­cess coach via email to get help with assign­ments,” writes TechCrunch’s Aisha Malik. “You can com­plete your course­work when it’s con­ve­nient for you, but you will have week­ly due dates for most of the cours­es. If you want to access addi­tion­al sup­port, some instruc­tors hold option­al office hours.” This sort of learn­ing expe­ri­ence could become a bridge to Youtube life and col­lege life — the lat­ter being the sub­ject addressed, with char­ac­ter­is­tic Youtube direct­ness, in the exist­ing Study Hall course “How to Col­lege.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

A Crash Course in World His­to­ry

Crash Course Phi­los­o­phy: Hank Green’s Fast-Paced Intro­duc­tion to Phi­los­o­phy Gets Under­way on YouTube

Crash Course on Lit­er­a­ture: Watch John Green’s Fun Intro­duc­tions to Gats­by, Catch­er in the Rye & Oth­er Clas­sics

A Crash Course on Psy­chol­o­gy: A 30-Part Video Series from Hank Green

Crash Course Big His­to­ry: John Green Teach­es Life, the Uni­verse & Every­thing

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Ray Dalio Is Giving Away Free Copies of His New Book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World to High School & College Teachers and Their Students

in Books, Current Affairs, History | May 5th, 2022

As we not­ed back in March, investor Ray Dalio has pub­lished his lat­est best­seller, Prin­ci­ples for Deal­ing with the Chang­ing World: Why Nations Suc­ceed and Fail. A his­to­ry of the rise and fall of empires over the last 500 years, the book uses the past to con­tem­plate the future, par­tic­u­lar­ly the fate of the Unit­ed States and Chi­na. Today, for Teacher Appre­ci­a­tion Week, Dalio has announced that he’s will­ing to give a copy of the book “to any high school or col­lege edu­ca­tor who wants it—and to all of their stu­dents if they intend to have them read it.” He writes:

Since releas­ing my book and ani­mat­ed video [above], Prin­ci­ples for Deal­ing with the Chang­ing World Order, many peo­ple have told me that both would be help­ful for teach­ing his­to­ry in schools and asked me if I would help make that hap­pen. So, dur­ing this Teacher Appre­ci­a­tion Week I will give a copy of the book to any high school or col­lege edu­ca­tor who wants it—and to all of their stu­dents if they intend to have them read it. And if there’s a lot of inter­est, I’d be hap­py to extend the offer past this week. Of course, the Youtube video is already free and eas­i­ly avail­able and I encour­age you to check that out if you want an overview of what’s in the book.

When you sign up, let me know if you’re inter­est­ed in me host­ing a live online ses­sion for class­rooms, which I’ll do if peo­ple would like it. If you are not an edu­ca­tor but know some who might be inter­est­ed in this offer, please share this link with them.

To access the offer, click here.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Prin­ci­ples for Deal­ing with the Chang­ing World Order: An Ani­mat­ed Video Explain­ing Key Ideas in Ray Dalio’s New Best­selling Book

The Prin­ci­ples for Suc­cess by Entre­pre­neur & Investor Ray Dalio: A 30-Minute Ani­mat­ed Primer

Eco­nom­ics 101: Hedge Fund Investor Ray Dalio Explains How the Econ­o­my Works in a 30-Minute Ani­mat­ed Video

Ray Dalio & Adam Grant Launch Free Online Per­son­al­i­ty Assess­ment to Help You Under­stand Your­self (and Oth­ers Under­stand You)

Become a Project Manager Without a College Degree with Google’s Project Management Certificate

in Business, Google, Technology | October 26th, 2021

As we first men­tioned last year, Google has launched a series of Career Cer­tifi­cate pro­grams that allow stu­dents to gain exper­tise in a field, ide­al­ly enough to start work­ing with­out a 4‑year col­lege degree. This ini­tia­tive now includes a Cer­tifi­cate in Project Man­age­ment, which con­sists of six cours­es.

• Foun­da­tions of Project Man­age­ment
• Project Ini­ti­a­tion: Start­ing a Suc­cess­ful Project
• Project Plan­ning: Putting It All Togeth­er
• Project Exe­cu­tion: Run­ning the Project
• Agile Project Man­age­ment
• Cap­stone: Apply­ing Project Man­age­ment in the Real World

Above, a Pro­gram Man­ag­er talks about “her path from drop­ping out of high school and earn­ing a GED, join­ing the mil­i­tary, and work­ing as a coder, to learn­ing about pro­gram man­age­ment and switch­ing into that career track.” An intro­duc­tion to the Project Man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate appears below.

The Project Man­age­ment pro­gram takes about six months to com­plete, and should cost about $250 in total. Stu­dents get charged $39 per month until they com­plete the pro­gram.

You can explore the Project Man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate here. And find oth­er Google career cer­tifi­cates in oth­er fields–e.g. UX Design and Data Ana­lyt­ics–over on this page. All Google career cours­es are host­ed on the Cours­era plat­form.

Note: Open Cul­ture has a part­ner­ship with Cours­era. If read­ers enroll in cer­tain Cours­era cours­es and pro­grams, it helps sup­port Open Cul­ture.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Google Intro­duces 6‑Month Career Cer­tifi­cates, Threat­en­ing to Dis­rupt High­er Edu­ca­tion with “the Equiv­a­lent of a Four-Year Degree”

Google & Cours­era Launch Career Cer­tifi­cates That Pre­pare Stu­dents for Jobs in 6 Months: Data Ana­lyt­ics, Project Man­age­ment and UX Design

Google’s UX Design Pro­fes­sion­al Cer­tifi­cate: 7 Cours­es Will Help Pre­pare Stu­dents for an Entry-Lev­el Job in 6 Months

150 Free Online Busi­ness Cours­es

Bill Gates Lets College Students Download a Free Digital Copy of His Book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

in Books, Current Affairs | October 25th, 2021

FYI: Ear­li­er this year, Bill Gates pub­lished the New York Times best­seller, How to Avoid a Cli­mate Dis­as­ter: The Solu­tions We Have and the Break­throughs We Need. In the book, Gates explains why we need to work toward net-zero emis­sions of green­house gas­es, and how we can achieve this goal.  Giv­en that this respon­si­bil­i­ty will even­tu­al­ly fall to a younger gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers, Gates has decid­ed to make a dig­i­tal copy of his book avail­able to every col­lege and uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent in the world.

The book can be down­loaded an .epub file which can be opened in a com­pat­i­ble e‑reader appli­ca­tion on many devices. An email address, along with a name of college/university, is required. Find the book here.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Bill Gates Describes His Biggest Fear: “I Rate the Chance of a Wide­spread Epi­dem­ic Far Worse Than Ebo­la at Well Over 50 Per­cent” (2015)

Take Big His­to­ry: A Free Short Course on 13.8 Bil­lion Years of His­to­ry, Fund­ed by Bill Gates

Bill Gates Rec­om­mends 5 Thought-Pro­vok­ing Books to Read This Sum­mer

How Bill Gates Reads Books

Become a Project Manager Without a College Degree with Google’s Project Management Certificate

in Google, Online Courses, Technology | August 23rd, 2021

As we first men­tioned last year, Google has launched a series of Career Cer­tifi­cate pro­grams that allow stu­dents to gain exper­tise in a field, ide­al­ly enough to start work­ing with­out a 4‑year col­lege degree. This ini­tia­tive now includes a Cer­tifi­cate in Project Man­age­ment, which con­sists of six cours­es.

• Foun­da­tions of Project Man­age­ment
• Project Ini­ti­a­tion: Start­ing a Suc­cess­ful Project
• Project Plan­ning: Putting It All Togeth­er
• Project Exe­cu­tion: Run­ning the Project
• Agile Project Man­age­ment
• Cap­stone: Apply­ing Project Man­age­ment in the Real World

Above, a Pro­gram Man­ag­er talks about “her path from drop­ping out of high school and earn­ing a GED, join­ing the mil­i­tary, and work­ing as a coder, to learn­ing about pro­gram man­age­ment and switch­ing into that career track.” An intro­duc­tion to the Project Man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate appears below.

The Project Man­age­ment pro­gram takes about six months to com­plete, and should cost about $250 in total. Stu­dents get charged $39 per month until they com­plete the pro­gram.

You can explore the Project Man­age­ment cer­tifi­cate here. And find oth­er Google career cer­tifi­cates in oth­er fields–e.g. UX Design and Data Ana­lyt­ics–over on this page. All Google career cours­es are host­ed on the Cours­era plat­form.

Note: Open Cul­ture has a part­ner­ship with Cours­era. If read­ers enroll in cer­tain Cours­era cours­es and pro­grams, it helps sup­port Open Cul­ture.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Google Intro­duces 6‑Month Career Cer­tifi­cates, Threat­en­ing to Dis­rupt High­er Edu­ca­tion with “the Equiv­a­lent of a Four-Year Degree”

Google & Cours­era Launch Career Cer­tifi­cates That Pre­pare Stu­dents for Jobs in 6 Months: Data Ana­lyt­ics, Project Man­age­ment and UX Design

Google’s UX Design Pro­fes­sion­al Cer­tifi­cate: 7 Cours­es Will Help Pre­pare Stu­dents for an Entry-Lev­el Job in 6 Months