Choosing the Next Course

I'm currently studying two courses, Introduction to Genetics and Evolution, and 6.00x: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming as the third one I was studying finished last weekend. Next week there are three courses starting that I'm interested in but there is no way I can manage to study five courses while working full time and tutoring on top of that. The courses I'm thinking about taking are the following.

Think Again: How to Reason and Argue (12 weeks, starts 26th November, 5-6 hours per week)
I always find it hard to argue with people and to pinpoint the problems with their argument when they are deflecting or introducing irrelevant topics. I don't trust myself to spot flawed arguments, unless they are mathematical, and I don't want to be an easy target so I think this course could be helpful in providing some enlightenment.

Introduction to Astronomy (9 weeks, starts 27th November, 6-8 hours per week)
I don't know much about astronomy although I've been learning bits and pieces over the last couple of years. I'd like to organise and extend that knowledge.

Drugs and the Brain (5 weeks, starts 1st December, 3-5 hours per week)
From when I was a young child, I wanted to study medicine. When I was 16 I realised that I wasn't clever enough and so I had to give up that dream. Even though the dream couldn't become a reality, the area of medicine still fascinates me. I did a course in Pharmacology a couple of months ago so hopefully the knowledge I gained from that course will be useful for this one.

Decisions, decisions. It's always so hard to choose.

A Year of Courses

Over the past year or so, I've studied quite a few online courses. It surprised me just how many, especially since I started working full time in March. I started quite a few more than this, and then just picked out the ones I liked the best. Some I didn't complete because I didn't like the grading policies, some because they didn't turn out as interesting as I hoped. I have got a certificate from one more but because I didn't really follow it, I don't consider it one I want to add to my list.

For me, this list shows how much you can accomplish without realising it.

Completed

October - December 2011

1. Introduction to Artificial Intelligence which was taught by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig
2. Introduction to Databases which is now at Coursera,taught by Jennifer Widom
3. Machine Learning which is now at Coursera, taught by Andrew Ng

January 2012

4. Open Climate Science 101 taught by David Archer

January - February 2012

5. Fundamentals of Nanoelectronics, Part 1: Basic Concepts taught by Supriyo Datta

February - April 2012

6. Introduction to Computer Science (CS101) Building a Search Engine taught by David Evans
7. Artificial Intelligence (CS373) Programming A Robotic Car taught by Sebastian Thrun (I really could do with going back and doing a little more on this course as I don't feel I got as much from it as I would have liked due to time constraints with work at the time. The course is now self-paced so there is no time limit.)

June - September 2012

8. Vaccines taught by Paul Offit
9. Fundamentals of Pharmacology taught by Emma Meagher

July 2012

10. Power Searching with Google

September - October 2012

11.Introduction to Theoretical Computer Science (CS313) Dealing with Challenging Problems taught by Sebastian Wernicke

September - November 2012

12. Learn to Program: The Fundamentals taught by Jennifer Campbell and Paul Gries

In Progress:

September 2012 - January 2013

13. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming taught by Eric Grimson, Chris Terman and John Guttag

October - December 2012

14. Introduction to Genetics and Evolution taught by Mohamed Noor