Help! I've become a course hoarder

I know what you mean. My policy is just to drop it. I don't tell myself that I will do it later. I just flat out quit, no expectations. Funny thing is that I do sometimes return. But its nice not to feel like a failure when I don't.

I think it would be very nice if Coursera/Udacity would offer something like a CS-Track Curriculum, i.e. a collection of 5-6 courses that you have to finish to obtain a combined certificate - something like a "mini-degree" - for instance in "AI & ML", "Basic programming" or "Biosciences". This would provide motivation to finish all of the courses.

I also found that subsribing to the "Signature Track" at Coursera is also a pretty good way to make a commitment to a course, as dropping it would implicate the loss of real money :-)

I'm also suffering from CHS (course hoarding syndrome). When browsing the ever growing list of available courses on EdX, Coursera, Udacity etc. I get excited and enroll in too many. Lack of free time (besides full time work and family) then forces me to drop most of them. In the end I earn only a few certificates. But that's ok for me! ;-) The decision what courses to dump is the hard part, that sometimes hurts.

I used to suffer from CHS before. But now as I'm just concentrating on my formal education, I just enroll to have access to material. I focus on my REAL college and ignore the MOOC's altogether.Study what you need ignore everything else.

Me too. I pulled off three courses at once twice (the fateful Fall of 2011 and then the Spring of 2012), and although I'm very proud of it, honestly I don't think I'll ever repeat it. Plus I wanted to beef up my CV, but now I'm more content with my work, and besides I've moved to a different country because of it, and that means I have more things going on in my life. With many more course offerings right now the temptation is big, I would of course love to take half a dozen of them, but I'm undecided if I should drop all but one or attempt maybe two.

I've already completely missed one course I was very interested in, during the time I doing most of the moving work. I've enrolled in many courses without even looking at the dates too much: if when the email reminder comes I don't have the time, I won't even start them. But I haven't always been so focused, I got burned while trying to pull off a fourth (yeah...) course during the Spring of 2012. I only dropped it after I had invested a lot of time in it and completed more than half of it.

hi, I'm Ahmad.. and I suffer from CHS.

other CHSers: hi Ahmad

Me: It is taking over my life. using Excel sheets to organize all my courses and due dates. Not getting a Hair cut!.. my job performance is suffering. I don't know what to do. Please HELP!