on MOOCs.

For those of you who don't know, MOOC stands for Massively Open Online Course.

The internet is an awesome thing. It's making education free for all. Well, mostly free. But it's surprising at the width and depth of courses being offered online. And it looks like they are also having an impact on students, especially those from universities that are not top ranked. Students in all parts of the world can now get a first class education experience, thanks to courses offered by Stanford, MIT, Caltech, etc.

I'm talking about MOOCs because one of my new year resolutions is to take online courses, atleast 2 per semester (6 months). And I've chosen the following two courses on edX - Analyzing Big Data with Microsoft R Server and Data Science Essentials for now. I looked at courses on Coursera but I couldn't find any which was worthy and free. There are a lot more MOOC providers out there but let's start here. And I feel like the two courses are relevant to where I am right now.

This is not the first time I've registered for a MOOC. But I hope that this is going to the be the first time I sit through one completely and work on all of the assignments. There needs to be a balance between structured learning and improvisational learning, which i'm trying to find. I was pro-improvisational learning most of my college life but I switched sides to being pro-structures/class-room learning in my final year. Let's see if I find that balance now.

Also, I've been wasting too much of my free time. Apart from a few hours spent on side projects, most of my free time is spent watching random american tv shows and movies, a habit that I desperately need to keep under check. The online courses are an effort in that direction. Let's see how this little experiment goes.

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