Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Startup University’s Disruption Plan: an Old-School Master’s Degree - Christina Passadriello, Wall Street Journal

Minerva Project Inc., a startup university program with no lectures and no final exams, welcomed its first full freshman class this fall with the promise of a different kind of education. All courses take place online, and the students live in a different country each year. “We’re trying to give students cognitive tools for jobs that don’t exist yet,” says Ben Nelson, Minerva’s founder and chief executive. ​“There’s a shift from a perspective on focusing on grades to actually learning.…​We’re not here to give you a degree; we’re here to educate you.” Soon, though, Minerva will begin offering a more conventional tool: a master’s degree, so that its students can graduate with two degrees in four years, an overlap that also exists at schools like Stanford University and Yale​ University. http://www.wsj.com/articles/education-startup-minerva-project-to-offer-masters-degree-program-1449679243