This is a **solid path** for those of you who want to complete a **Computer Science** course on your own time, **for free**, with courses from the **best universities** in the World.
In our curriculum, we gave preference to MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) style courses because those courses were created with our style of learning in mind.
To officially register for this course you must create a profile in our [students profile](https://github.com/open-source-society/computer-science-and-engineering/issues/109) issue.
Comment in [this](https://github.com/open-source-society/computer-science-and-engineering/issues/109) issue (please, do **not** open a new one) using the following template:
By making a [public commitment](http://renewablewealth.com/articles/the-power-of-a-public-commitment/), we have a greater chance of **successfully** graduating, a way to get to know our peers better, and an opportunity to share the things that we have done.
Here are two interesting links that can make **all** the difference in your journey.
The first one is a motivational video that shows a guy that went through the "MIT Challenge", that consists in learning the entire **4-year** MIT curriculum for Computer Science in **1 year**.
The second link is a MOOC that will teach you learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines. These are **fundamental abilities** to succeed in our journey.
[Introduction to Computer Science](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-harvardx-cs50x#!)| 12 weeks | 10-20 hours/week
[Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-mitx-6-00-1x-5#!)| 9 weeks | 15 hours/week
[Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computational-thinking-data-mitx-6-00-2x-2#!)| 10 weeks | 15 hours/week
[Systematic Program Design- Part 1: The Core Method](https://www.edx.org/course/systematic-program-design-part-1-core-ubcx-spd1x-0)| 5 weeks | 8-12 hours/week
[Systematic Program Design- Part 2: Arbitrary Sized Data](https://www.edx.org/course/systematic-program-design-part-2-ubcx-spd2x)| 5 weeks | 8-12 hours/week
[Systematic Program Design- Part 3: Abstraction, Search and Graphs](https://www.edx.org/course/systematic-program-design-part-3-ubcx-spd3x)| 5 weeks | 8-12 hours/week
[Engineering Software as a Service (SaaS), Part 1](https://www.edx.org/course/engineering-software-service-saas-part-1-uc-berkeleyx-cs169-1x)| 9 weeks | 12 hours/week
[Engineering Software as a Service (Saas), Part 2](https://www.edx.org/course/engineering-software-service-saas-part-2-uc-berkeleyx-cs169-2x)| 8 weeks | 12 hours/week
[Software Processes and Agile Practices](https://www.coursera.org/learn/software-processes-and-agile-practices)| 4 weeks | 6-8 hours/week
[Introduction to Probability - The Science of Uncertainty](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-probability-science-mitx-6-041x-0)| 16 weeks | 12 hours/week
The courses are **already** in the order that you should complete them. Just start in the **Introduction** section and after finishing the first course, start the next one.
It may take longer to complete all of the classes compared to a regular CS course, but I can **guarantee** you that your **reward** will be proportional to **your motivation/dedication**!
You must focus on your **habit**, and **forget** about goals. Try to invest 1 ~ 2 hours **every day** studying this curriculum. If you do this, **inevitably** you'll finish this curriculum.
> See more about "Commit to a process, not a goal" [here](http://jamesclear.com/goals-systems).
After finish a course, you should think about a **real world problem** that you can solve using the acquired knowledge in the course. You don't need to create a big project, but you must create something to **validate** and **consolidate** your knowledge, and also to show to the world that you are capable to create something useful with the concepts that you learned.
You **need** to have in mind that what you are able to **create** with the concepts that you learned will be your certificate **and this is what really matters**!
In order to show that you **really** learned those things, you need to be **creative**!
Here are some tips about how you can do that:
- **Articles**: create blog posts to synthesize/summarize what you learned.
- **GitHub repository**: keep your course's files organized in a GH repository, so in that way other students can use it to study with your annotations.
**We love cooperative work**! Use our [channels](#community) to communicate with other fellows to combine and create new projects!
### Which programming languages should I use?
My friend, here is the best part of liberty! You can use **any** language that you want to complete the courses.
The **important** thing for each course is to **internalize** the **core concepts** and to be able to use them with whatever tool (programming language) that you wish.
### Content Policy
You must share **only** files that you are **allowed** to! **Do NOT disrespect the code of conduct** that you signed in the beginning of some courses.
[Be creative](#be-creative) in order to show your progress! :smile:
To show **respect** to all of our students, we will keep a [CHANGELOG](CHANGELOG.md) file that contains all the alterations that our curriculum may suffer.
Now we have a **stable** version of the curriculum, which won't change anymore, only in exceptional cases (outdated courses, broken links, etc).
Our students can **trust** in this curriculum because it has been **carefully planned** and covers **all** the **core topics** that a conventional Computer Science course covers.
We also include modern topics, making this course one of the **best options** for those who want to become a Computer Scientist and/or a Software Engineer.
You can [open an issue](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-an-issue/) and give us your suggestions as to how we can improve this guide, or what we can do to improve the learning experience.
We also have a chat room! [](https://gitter.im/open-source-society/computer-science-and-engineering?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=badge&utm_campaign=pr-badge&utm_content=badge)
> **ps**: A forum is an ideal way to interact with other students as we do not lose important discussions, which usually occur in communication via chat apps. **Please use our subreddit/group for important discussions**.
- [Add our University page at Linkedin](https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/40128/~/adding-a-new-university-page), so in that way we will be able to add **OSS University** in our Linkedin profile.
