I don’t know if learning from online courses can be considered a hobby, but if it is, then… I think this has developed into a hobby (if you can call this a hobby). It started with me signing up for free MOOCs, and ended with me actually having bought several courses! Why are they so addictive?

Why I enjoy Online Courses

First, paid courses from someone I trust (this is key when buying a course) mean that I save on a lot of time. There are tons of free content out there, but not all of it is good and sifting through them to find out what works for me can take a lot of time. Courses help me to save time – all the information comes organised and packaged and all I need to do is to find the time to put them into action. Plus, a few of the courses I’ve got routinely update their content, which means that I can keep updated on what’s changed + get new strategies.

Second, many courses come with a group (mostly Facebook, though once it was on Mighty Networks) and that can be another great resource. If the group is well-moderated, you’ll often find a lot of valuable posts from people, and generally I like reading about how things worked out (or did not work out) for other people who also took the course.

Third (I feel so accomplished with this structure, it’s almost like I’m back in school writing essays), buying a course is essentially a tactic I use to try and harness the power of the sunk cost fallacy. If I’ve paid money for this, then I better go through all the material and start making changes. Otherwise, what did I just spend money for?

Plus, I like supporting other creators. While I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy a course just to show my support, if I follow someone and like their free content, then buying a course from them is an easy decision (see: me buying Sara Tasker’s courses and Mark Dawson’s courses).

Questions to ask before you buy an online course

In general, if you have an enthusiastic “yes” as an answer for these questions, you would benefit from the course:

• Is there lifetime access? (pretty much a must)
• Will the course be updated? (ideally, yes. Unless you’re buying something where the industry/skills will not change)
• Have I tried the free content (and liked it/found it useful)?
• Speaking of free content, how much is out there on the web, and is it easily gathered/sifted through (if there’s a lot of contradictory content, or the content is hard to find, that makes the course more worth it because it will save you more time! But if there are tons of well-written guides that give you enough for what you need right now, you probably don’t need to buy the course)
• Do I need this content? This is related to the question above – there is no use buying a course for advanced users if you’re a beginner and there are lot of free introductory courses/youtube videos/blogposts around.
• Is the person who offers the course successful in that field? E.g. I bought Mark Dawson’s course BECAUSE he sells a lot of books – something I can check by looking at book rankings/reading reviews
• Is there a group where I can interact & learn from others? (This is optional and depends on how much interaction you want)

And here are some reasons not to buy a course:

• Other people are telling you to buy it (it might be because of affiliates)
• Course bonuses (especially from people who have affiliate links and want you to buy from their email – while I have nothing against people who throw in extra bonuses to try and get people to use their affiliate links, this shouldn’t be the main reason why you are buying the course).
• Someone says the course is closing and you’re worried you will never get to buy the course again – most courses tend to open enrolment a few times a year. Sure, you may miss one enrolment/purchase season, but it’s better not to make a decision when you’re pressured for time.

I’m pretty sure courses have downsides apart from financial inaccessibility, but I’m currently in a “I love courses mood” and couldn’t think of any. I will probably update this post once I think of reasons why online courses, in general, might not be great.

Anyway, for the next few weeks, I’ll be posting non-affiliate-linked reviews of courses* that I’ve taken so if you’re like me and like courses… stay tuned?

*One thing that I’ve had problems with is that when I’m looking for reviews to vet courses, many of them are affiliate links so it’s harder to trust what they say.