On-line Courses

Dear Kayla,

I have recently been taking some of the new MOOC's (Massive Open Online Courses) and finding them extremely helpful. I have been working to build my academic skills for a while now. I had considerable psychiatric difficulties both in college and in graduate school. While I was able to fix the psychiatric problems, I had missed developing some academic skills. Right now the MOOC's are really helping me.

The courses are offered on-line, which means I can do them when I can focus and concentrate (as opposed to traditional classes where you attend on a set schedule). Most of the lectures are broken up into smaller segments (usually not more than twenty minutes). That is a considerable advantage for me even now.

If you want to try it I would suggest you start with one course. Pick the one course that sounds most interesting to you and do it for at least two weeks before adding any additional courses. It takes a little while to grow used to being back in school, even on-line courses, and to understand and accommodate what the course expects. Also, for your first class, choose what is most interesting to you, not what you most need. You need to grow used to taking these courses first. Once you know what to expect, you can focus on other needs.

I think the largest selection of courses is at http://www.coursera.org. Another site with good courses is at http://www.edx.org. A comprehensive (but overwhelming) list is at http://www.class-central.com.

Good luck!

Waiting

Dear Kayla,

Some parts of improvement can be extremely exasperating. There are some times when you are working on a major step and slowly building it piece by piece. That can be repetitive and tedious, but you cannot really move on to next steps without mastering the one you are currently working on. And often you can only concentrate on that step for a few hours a day (or even a week). It can be very annoying to have to wait, especially when you can see further ahead.

There is not much you can do about the tedium. Many major steps require careful and repetitive practice. If you rush through them you will most likely have problems down the line.

Don't take breaks. Spend as much time as you can handle on building that step. Tell yourself again and again that you will move through it - that you are doing your best to move through it as quickly as possible.

If you can, try to think of some smaller, unrelated step you can take in addition to the major step you are working on. Even if it is not what you need, as long as it is in the right direction you will benefit from it. And it can help you deal with the tedium. But the #1 rule is: Don't distract yourself from your primary step. As soon as you think these additional steps are distracting you from your main goal, stop them immediately. You can try to add more eventually. But your top priority is moving toward your main goal.