MOOC overcommitter

The homework for the Academic and Business Writing course offered by Berkeley is some sort of journal with a series of prompts to practice writing, so this is where I will be posting them!

The amount of writing I’m required to do now has decreased significantly from my high school days, and even maybe my first year university days. I haven’t taken a course that requires heavy writing in approximately two years now, so the writing I usually do is creative writing, or journalling. These are very low commitment and for my personal enjoyment, and thus I feel the standards I set for myself are also practically nonexistent. 

When I write for personal purposes, it’s a form of sorting out my thoughts for myself. Even if I’m trying to write something creative, it is usually writing about a situation I am familiar with, in a different perspective, so I can feel more liberated to explore my opinions with the guise that it doesn’t actually involve me. When I journal, it’s a form of therapy. Honestly, I’m not quite sure if I enjoy it because I write longhand and so it feels tedious, and sometimes my attention span feels too short to fully write down all the thoughts I have. However, I think it’s a good method to get me to slow down and really evaluate my thoughts on my current state of mind, or a situation. 

Thinking of writing otherwise, however, is not an enjoyable experience. I think my academic/professional writing skills are not quite up to par, since I spend most of my time communicating in a rather colloquial manner. I think I also compare myself very quickly to peers who seem to have an easier and more elegant way with words, thus making me feel stunted and left behind, immediately. Hopefully this perception has faded in the past couple years, and I can work more on self-improvement on this skill I wish to have. 

alright let’s do this. date in the not american fashion because even though i’m canadian and we just follow america wherever they go, i’m in singapore and i want to assimilate. 

today, i just ripped through a couple videos in smithsonian’s objects that define america, in particular the section on liberties and freedoms. my overall impression of the course so far is that since i’m not particularly knowledgeable about american history, i’m not sure how well these object-specific history lessons will stick. it appears that these objects are generally considered “iconic” in american history but again, as i’m not very well informed nor do i delve much deeper into the events mentioned than presented in the course, the relevance of these objects to the modern day american psyche is somewhat lost on me. i’m also leery on taking the presenter’s words as the ultimate opinion to follow, because there’s quite an emphasis on patriotism that i feel might cause the course to gloss over contemporary issues these objects may present. 

as the deadline is approaching soon, i’m not taking the time to do the quizzes at the end of each section, which do in fact solidify my understanding, so i feel like i’m just taking this course right now for completion’s sake and for some potential trivia that might stick. 

also, the course is advertised as 1-2 hours a week.. man maybe i’m wrong but it feels extremely video heavy. every week has 3 sections with around 3 videos each, each video averaging 6-7 minutes. if you were to actually do the quizzes, they’re in a program that pushes the spaced repetition learning method which is also quite time consuming. 

oh boy here we go

Academic and Business Writing (BerkeleyX - ColWri2.2x): August 13, 2019

Ancient Masterpieces of World Literature (HarvardX - HUM12.1x): August 8, 2019

Smithsonian's Objects that Define America (SmithsonianX -USHIS1.2x): July 25, 2019

The Chemistry of Life (KyotoUx - 001x): September 26, 2019

some other fun stuff i overcommitted to, in a vague order of priorities, but luckily (?) are archived on edx:

Linear Algebra: Foundations to Frontiers (UTAustinX - UT.5.05x)

How to Write an Essay (BerkeleyX - ColWri2.1x)

etc .. :( when will i learn self control

coursera courses with no firm deadlines because coursera isn’t the devil 

Learning How to Learn: McMaster, UCSD

4 weeks 

2-4 hours per week

Buddhism and Modern Psychology: Princeton

6 weeks

2-5 hours per week

Creative Writing: The Craft of Plot: Wesleyan 

4 weeks

1-2 hours per week

wow 1-2 hours? shit this should be a piece of cake

Part 1 of 5: Creative Writing Specialization 

Introduction to Logic: Stanford

10 weeks

4-8 hours per week

apparently this gets real hard later on

The Science of Wellbeing: Yale

10 weeks

apparently one of yale’s most popular courses irl?

looks so wholesome

not every week has course content it seems

1-3 hours of videos per week when applicable

Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments: Duke 

4 weeks

3-5 hours per week

i just wanna kill in arguments yanno

Part 1 of 4 of a more informal series, Think Again

do people still use tumblr? 

anyway, i wanted just to create a blog to keep myself accountable because it seems my habit is to sign on to way too many MOOCs, and never finish them, but somehow feel educated for signing up in the first place. now that edx has audit access caps on current courses (very upsetting, how will i endlessly procrastinate now), i think it’s a good idea to track my progress! and see if i’m actually getting anywhere!