My focus in this semester is on finance and entrepreneurship. I started out strong with How to Build a Startup  from Udacity. I also registered for several other courses, including Financial Markets with Robert Shiller (Coursera), Financial Analysis of Entrepreneurial Ideas (NovoEd), and An Introduction to Credit Risk Management (edX), as well as a few others.  In registering for so many courses, I always thought I would drop some of them. I work full time, so I’m able to keep up with about two courses at a time.

One of the courses I signed up for as part of my finance and entrepreneurship unit – one I was actually quite excited about – was Evaluation Financière de l’Entreprise, a.k.a. Corporate Valuation, from the HEC business school in Paris (Coursera). As you might have guessed, this course was in French.  Part of my interest in this course was the language element – I’ve studied French, I live in a formerly francophone African country, and I’m always looking for ways to improve my language skills.

But from the first week, it was clear that studying a difficult subject in a foreign language was going to require more time and energy than I typically budget for a MOOC. I spent the entire first video wondering what “action” the professor was referring to when he spoke about the “value per action” before realizing that “action” translates as “share.” I experienced a similar confusion with the word “bénéfice,” which translates not as “benefit” but as “earnings.” Unfortunately, by the time I had figured out that “benefit per action” was actually “earnings per share,” I had to go back and watch the whole lecture again.

The second week of the course, I went out of town over the weekend. Not having a large chunk of time that week to focus on my studies, I fell behind and I haven’t been able to catch back up. Even now that it has become abundantly clear that I won’t be able to finish the course, I haven’t been able to bring myself to un-enroll.  Around 90% of MOOC enrollees don’t finish the courses they’ve signed up for. I’ve taken about a dozen MOOCs so far and this is the first one I’ve been unable to finish. Even though I didn’t intend to take all the courses I registered for, I’ve found it difficult to take the step of actually withdrawing from Evaluation Financière de l’Entreprise – I guess I don’t want to admit that I’m actually quitting, even if in practice I already have.

This experience has made it easier for me to understand why so many people don’t finish their courses. There is no cost at all to signing up, and registering for a course comes with a surge of hope and excitement about the new knowledge you’ll soon acquire. Giving up that prospect doesn’t feel good. Rather than subject oneself to the disappointment that comes with withdrawing from a course, it’s easier to let the course just time out. The fact that so many MOOC students are internationals, taking courses in their second or even third language, also helps to explain why the completion rates are so low.

My advice to other MOOC students at the beginning of this semester was to register for every course that strikes their fancy, then un-enroll from the ones they don’t plan to complete. Now that I’m actually in the position of knowing that I won’t be finishing one of my courses, I’ve found it difficult to take my own advice, but for the sake of consistency, I think I have to do it.

So here goes. Logging into Coursera. All right, Corporate Valuation, I’ll try to get back to you next time you’re offered.

Click.

<sigh>

It’s done.