I enrolled in this course in the UK during the coronavirus pandemic. I watched all of the video lectures, completed the quizzes, submitted my assignments and reviewed the work of my peers. The only thing I did not do was submit my final exam (reasons below).

What’s great about the course: There is a great deal of content that introduces lots of social science concepts that affect happiness. You can delve deeper into those elements that interest you and have a base line knowledge of those that don’t.

Dr Raghunathan is a great presenter with passion for his subject. The cheesy music and jokes grew on me as I realised they were his authentic style.

Some of the exercises were fun and introduced their concepts in a gentle and thoughtful way.

What could be improved: The errors in the course are distracting and disappointing (I’m talking about the ones that impact how the course works operationally (e.g. not being about to upload assignments in a certain format when videos say that you can do so, being told assignments have been submitted late when they have not, being told you have answered questions in lectures wrong because you did not use a capital letter) rather than typo errors or the wrong pictures being referenced). I understand that there isn’t a commercial drive to correct these errors in a free course, but we are six years on from when it was first created and some of the main errors impact people’s enjoyment and progress, which in turn will impact whether people will pay for a Certificate at the end (it did me).

Peer reviews: while I completely understand that this course aims to be as inclusive as possible, it lacks credibility for people to pass assignments when they don’t understand the assignments, or have plainly put no work into them. For example, one of the questions was “what makes you happy?” To gain points one simply had to list a few examples of things they personally did that made them happy, an answer presented to me just said “lots of things” and nothing more, When I tried to award zero points, I encountered error messages and could not submit my marking.

The final exam: This comprises of 12 questions in two parts (a) and (b) that covers all of the content of the course.The exam is a tall ask/order in terms of requirements and content, particularly when you consider the lower level of skill and knowledge students have needed to pass the assignments that have come before it. I would suggest that the part (a) sections of the final exam were incorporated into the weekly assignment tasks so we get accustomed to the rigour you’ll be expecting at the final stage. Then the final exam should only be comprised of the final six (part (b)) questions (and we were only required to pick three or four of those to answer and submit). I suspect a lot of people, like me, quit the course before submitting the final exam. I was all up for showing you what I learned and what I committed to do to improve my happiness; the final exam misses the mark in achieving that, which is a shame.

I had reached the last session of this course when it suddenly became impossible to access the video. i had to wait several days before this was possible (other videos from other sites were OK so must have been local to you and not a fault at my end) Then when I could access the site again I found I could not reconnect with the course at the level at which I had left it but would have to start again. Unsurprisingly I did not want to do this but would like to finish what was a very interesting and thought provoking course and the presentation was excellent and deserves 6 stars... the prof is a star. I hope you can help in this matter as there does not seem to be anywhere on your site where one has the opportunity to contact Coursera with problems such as this as I do not think this review page is truly relevant to the problem but where else can I go? Please do not suggest the Community Forum.

Hopefully

Mary W

I probably had higher hopes for this class and what format it might take, which led me to find the class less rewarding than I expected. I was looking forward to learning a variety of practical techniques to develop happiness and fulfillment, but the course was for more clinical. It pulled study after study and recommended a wide array of self-help books rather than provide hands-on techniques and guides for building a base for happiness. Even the weekly exercises felt tedious more than fulfilling. The instructor was positive and brought a genuine enthusiasm to the class, although the team that offered additional support felt overtly canned. Other might get more out of it than I did, but the class was fine.

Love the presenter, really nice and positive guy. However, not a fan of the content of the course. The idea of teaching happiness is an interesting one, but not well executed here, hence why I'm dropping out. Most suggestions are very basic and common sense and there is a lack of philosophical and cultural dimensions. Some research conclusions also lack basic critical reasoning skills eg survey where people wished for 3 things and only 6% wished for happiness. Well what about considering that the 3 things people wished for were what they thought would make them happy? Some research conclusions in the course have serious gaps and are too black and white for my liking.

The class was absolutely Wonderful, however I don't have the time to go at a student's pace (work , hom, life in general). I was trying to go back and finish week 6 video #4 but was unable to open the course! I want to llearn I wasn't aware there was a time limit to learn happiness. :(

Happiness is when your life fulfills your needs.

In other words, happiness comes when you feel satisfied and fulfilled. Happiness is a feeling of contentment, that life is just as it should be. Perfect happiness, enlightenment, comes when you have all of your needs satisfied.

A lot of information and time spent on watching lectures. I find courses more enjoyable when there is a smaller amount of information, but more in-depth. My rating my change as the course continues.

THIS COURSE IS INTERESTING,INFORMATIVE AND USEFFUL. RIGHT NOW I AM HEADING TOWARDS END OF THE COURSE. IT HAS HELPED ME TREMENDOUSLY. I WOULD RECOMEND THIS COURSE FOR EVERYBODY.

That was very informative and motivating course. I wish the quiz was not that detail oriented and hard..

A great and fun course ❤ though the technical glitches while grading are a bit inconvenient

It was a good experience to learn about happiness. Enjoyed it.

It is a reasonable well-delivered course given the topic

Course was too long and eo were y er in 15 utes

Good, simple, quite complete to a happier life.

Certificate delay was a big problem to me

Quite a lengthy course

excellent course

Not expected

a bit boring

Good course

Very good

good!

good

Nice

content was kinda ok-ish.......but the length of this course was too long to be put in the MIXED category.......really long course......another problem is that there were too many questions in between the videos and the lectures were too over-acted at some places.......the lectures werent too engaging too........