I’m Michelle Callaghan, a second-year graduate student at Villanova University. This is our new column, “‘Cat in the Stacks.” I’m the ‘cat. Falvey Memorial Library is the stacks. I’ll be posting about living that scholarly life, from research to study habits to embracing your inner-geek, and how the library community might aid you in all of it.

I know that mid-semester is not the best time to talk about all the things you can self-teach yourself, but don’t panic! With all the nice weather this week, I’m sure you are eager to plan for your summer. Or maybe you’re not a student. Hey, all the better – start learning! 

First off, and I didn’t know this until looking through our resources for this post, did you know the library has course guides from a pretty extensive list of Villanova courses? You can have access to the same knowledge without the registration. Ta-da. Knowledge is power – free(ish) knowledge is even more powerful power!
http://library.villanova.edu/research/course-guides/

Everyone should at least attempt another language, don’t you think? A quick google search will give you all sorts of free educational material, but Duolingo is a personal favorite. They even have Irish!
https://www.duolingo.com/

Now, perhaps you’ve got a tight schedule – you can learn all sorts of things in 20-minute TED talks. Just a quick perusal of the recently added videos can keep you on your toes with new knowledge for days!
https://www.ted.com/talks

Perhaps you’re lucky and you have a lot of time on your hands that you want to dedicate to your education. Check out EDx for actual 15-week courses from actual, real-life universities.
https://www.edx.org/

Isn’t it so exciting just knowing what’s out there for you to learn? The challenge, of course, is making a regular habit of it. Duolingo has an app that might aid you in habit-building your language studies. And you can watch TED talks on your mobile whenever you’d like! Just because you can’t pull off a free 15-week course doesn’t mean you can’t keep learning. Give it a go!

Article by Michelle Callaghan, graduate assistant on the Communication and Service Promotion team. She is currently pursuing her MA in English at Villanova University.