Companies in the United States need to know business law in order to sustain and grow their operations without falling foul of the system. With areas from bankruptcy to information privacy, business law finds its way into almost everything firms and their employees do. It defines the responsibilities of directors and company officers, the rules of partnerships and limited liability companies, securities regulation, intellectual property, corporate finance and a great deal else.

British fine arts auction house Christie’s was founded in 1766 and its founder, James Christie, was an intimate friend of the painters Gainsborough and Reynolds and the playwright Garrick. Fast forward to 2015 and it is one of the world’s leading auction houses with sales totalling $7.4 billion. Notable auctions have included Elton John’s car collection, a $22 million Qing Dynasty porcelain bowl, a $3.5 million Stradivarius violin, an $80 million Monet painting, the Oppenheimer Blue diamond, and many top works by Picasso, Mondrian, Klimt and Matisse.

Why spend a year and thousands of dollars being drip-fed an MBA when you can buy a $10 course that condenses it all into a few hours? How much of the detail of a full-fat MBA will you actually remember and apply to your career anyway?

‘Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity - the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.’

-Bill Gates

You can take an online course in almost anything these days: cookery, Excel, painting, how to be a cyber criminal, pottery, horticulture …

Wait a second, go back a bit. How to be a cyber criminal? There’s a course for that?

In 1233 a papal bull decreed that anyone admitted to the mastership at the University of Toulouse should be allowed to teach freely in any other university. Ever since then it has been set in stone that the rite of passage into a master’s degree is a three or four-year undergraduate degree. Pretty much by definition, a master’s is a follow-on from a bachelor’s degree.