Jonathan Haber majored in philosophy at Harvard University. And Yale. And Stanford. He explored Kant\u2019s \u201cThe Critique of Pure Reason\u201d\u009d with an Oxford don and Kierkegaard\u2019s insights into \u201cSubjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity\u201d\u009d with a leading light from the University of Copenhagen.<\/p>\n
In his quest to meet all the standard requirements for a bachelor of arts degree in a single year, the 52-year-old from Lexington, Mass., also took courses in English common law, Shakespeare\u2019s late plays and the science of cooking, which overlapped with the degree in chemistry he earned from Wesleyan in 1985.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the brilliant part: Mr. Haber didn\u2019t spend a dime on tuition or fees. Instead, he gorged from the smorgasbord of free courses offered by top universities. He documented the project on his website, degreeoffreedom.org, and in a new book exploring the wider phenomenon of massive open online courses, or MOOCs. He didn\u2019t earn a degree \u201d\u201d the knowledge may be free but the sheepskin costs dearly \u201d\u201d but he was satisfied.<\/p>\n