Coursera Again – Neuroanatomy

The beginning of Coursera coincided with the beginning of the post-career portion of my life a decade ago. It burst on the scene offering auditing of online courses for free (a small fee was charged for the testing and projects for credit). I was like a “kid in a candy store”…so many topics of interest that I never had time for during my undergraduate/graduate years….and some topics that didn’t exist until more recently! I audited a flurry of courses in the first few years then settled into an occasional course – usually in the wintertime when I spend more time indoors; there was an uptick during the COVID-19 pandemic but not to the levels of the first few years.  

I recently looked at my records and discovered I have audited 74 courses! The topics are varied: art, anatomy, nutrition, history, meditation, education, entomology, exoplanets, poetry, psychology, design, and architecture! The nutrition course was one of the early ones…and is where I learned about the Cronometer site that I am still using to track what I eat so that can take off a few pounds.

This month I completed a Neuroanatomy course from the University of Michigan. It is a 7-week course; I completed 3 weeks before I went to Carrollton TX in late January and completed the other 4 after I got back. I did my usual notetaking as I made my way through the material – trying to learn the vocabulary and the anatomical structures. Now I find I want to learn more about neurobiology!

This course pointed me to a new-to-me source of reference books: PDF Drive. Just look at the list of books available for Neuroanatomy! There are lots of other topics as well. I am getting the “kid in a candy store” feeling all over again!