Mooc miracle: 27 courses in 10 months

I am finishing with one of the writing moocs I have been taking during the last months. It feels like being part of a writing marathon. The last deadline for the writing assignment in English Composition one course has just passed. We had to write an op-ed using about 800 words. I managed in time but was quite close to give up because of the time frame not fitting in my last weeks schedule. I ended up writing about change in education, if you are interested in the topic then it is possible to read it online in AppleTree "Where is the change in education?".

When I was posting my link to the facebook group of the course I discovered a posting made by a fellow student Achint Nigam from Kanpur, Uttar Paradesh * in India:

"Finally, this one is also over, and its time for a break from moocs, this was my 27th mooc..btw.. over a period of 10 months :D"

There are people really taking the most of the MOOCs as you can see. Twenty seven moocs in ten months time! Why not?!? Here is some great piece of advice for the beginners shared in the same thread by the experienced online student.

do not engage in courses that are not directly going to help you. i.e. just for the sake of doing a course. I did some courses which I did not understand a bit, but they were very easy to complete hence completed them and wasted some valuable time. Second, don't get disheartened in courses which have written assignments, there are times when you don't get marks that you deserve, and become a cry baby on forum, remember there is no redressal for such errors yet. its better to quit some courses in order to do other with adequate rigor. And lastly there are so many platforms with moocs, so occasionally keep checking what is starting where. And to finish off, you will make many friends, from the other side of globe so interact and enjoy. There are times when there is evening on other side, and you have just waken up.. 

There has been a huge discussion about the dropout rate being exceptionally high in moocs (about 95%) and this student also gets question about the number of his dropouts in the thread.

ya, i dropped out of many.. last month only I dropped form two psychology courses.. and another english course. Earlier dropped some statistics courses, which were not related to my area of interest.

I have dropped out many as well, the statistics course being one of these. It was so theoretical and boring even I am doing statistics much and usually like it.

But anyway, it is amazing how much you can learn through the courses! My experience about writing in English has been very positive. One can only learn to write while writing and an online course can provide a great possibility to do so. I will receive my first certificate within a week after having given feedback for the other students.

Where to next? I´ll keep posting.


*Kanpur, previously Cawnpore, is the largest industrial city of Uttar Pradesh and also is the administrative headquarters of Kanpur Nagar district & Kanpur division. It is known as the Economic and Industrial Capital of Uttar Pradesh. It is also known as Leather City as it contains one of the largest and finest tanneries in India and in South Asia.