[xfernandox]

Resources like Coursera and Udacity are fantastic. They are how I got started on the path to becoming a professional software developer. They truly do a great job of democratizing education (at least to those with the resources to access the Internet).

I've mainly thought of free online education as impacting the lives of the thousands of students who yearn to learn, but do not have the opportunity to do so.

It's great to see that it's a two way street in terms of impact. Hopefully feedback from students who aren't traditional college students will help humanity broaden its understanding of the world and help us identify biases our academic disciplines may have. And we can all come out better for it.