If you asked me to give you three facts about myself, I would tell you (1) I’m a evening and weekend entrepreneur, (2) when I start working on something I enjoy, I can’t put it down, and (3) I love coffee. This a formula for disaster because I have a full time job that I have to show up to by 9AM and I’m a normal human person who needs at least 6 hours of sleep.
The average completion rate of Online Open Course (MOOC) certification programs is abysmally low. A report published in 2016 by researchers at Harvard and MIT based on 4 years of data indicated an average certification completion rate of just 5.5%. This does not discredit MOOCs to be a good source of quality education content for those looking for good information to improve their understanding for a particular subject; however, the depressing statistics underlines a deeper concern with the ineffectiveness of using a college curriculum to steer people’s professional development.