People ask, “What’s the best online course you’ve ever taken?”

I love a question that assumes I have an answer.

Honestly? I can’t think of a single one.

I’ve taken workplace trainings. Some were a glorious three minutes of cybersecurity, followed by a test that required approximately one functioning brain cell. Click, click, pass. Now THAT is educational efficiency. Give me a certificate and let me get back to work.

But an entire semester online? Lectures beamed into my laptop, discussion boards with strangers, and assignments competing with the 47 other things happening in my life? I’m not convinced my brain was designed for this particular form of torture.

And here’s the irony. I’m a lifelong learner. I like ideas. I like intellectual stimulation. I even enjoy seminars, although as an adult, I find sitting through some in-person trainings an exercise in patience and bladder management.

But online courses? So often they feel de-individualized, disconnected, and oddly detached from the actual experience of being human. A talking head, a slide deck, a multiple-choice quiz, and the faint suspicion that I could be doing something more useful with my time. Like reorganizing my spice cabinet.

Maybe I need interaction. Conversation. A real person who can read the room, answer the question behind the question, and recognize when the entire audience has mentally left the building.

Apparently, I want education to be personalized, engaging, and intellectually stimulating. How terribly inconvenient of me.

So, the best online course I’ve ever taken?

I’m still looking.

In the meantime, I remain deeply committed to lifelong learning. Just not necessarily to lifelong staring at a screen while someone narrates bullet points.

My educational philosophy is such. Teach me something. Make me think. Respect my time. And, for the love of all things psychological, don’t make me click “Next” 87 times to prove I was paying attention.

Because sometimes the most important lesson is knowing what works for your brain and what makes it quietly plan its escape.