According to NYT, Brown University is going to offer a free online engineering course. As nearly half of those majoring in engineer fail to complete their requirement courses in the US, Brown wants this opportunity to help high school students choose their majors and be prepared to study engineering at colleges. The course is not merely composed of lectures, but more of research assignments and activities.
Sanjay E. Sarma, the director of digital learning at MIT, thinks that "this will play into the application," but advises the parents not to have their kids to take these courses "at the expense of other projects." Some officials at Brown hope that this will increase engineering graduates of whom, there is a great shortage in the US, "as a result of misinformation, insufficient preparation and fears about the difficulty of engineering."
If you are interested in majoring in engineering, this would be a great opportunity to try out.
See more in the NYT article: http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/brown-university-creates-a-mooc-for-high-school-students/#more-51866