1000美元读完MBA

    皮卡德在四个月内完成了五门课程。最初，她计划在两到三年时间学完16门课，但她非常享受学习的过程。因此，她决定继续学习，积攒的学分将超过大多数MBA课程的要求。她说：“课程的数量很多，选择课程就像为自己选择冒险故事一样。我喜欢学校，所以面对这么多的课程，就像刚进校园时第一次拿到一个学期的课程目录一样，令人兴奋不已。看着这些课程你会想：‘哇，我要学这个，我要学那个。’”虽然课程的质量和难度千差万别，但皮卡德指出，实体教学也存在同样的问题。

    此外，皮卡德对于MOOC课程的虚拟性也不以为意。她的丈夫是一位外交官，未来四年将常驻卢旺达，因此在线课程反而更适合她。她说：“我的想法总是变来变去，对于商务的认识也在扩展和成长。以前的学习经历让我有全身心沉浸在学习中的感受，而在线学习一样能给我这种感受。从这个角度来说，这是MOOC的真正好处所在。”

    但MOOC的MBA并不适合所有人。要在两到三年内坚持参加在线课程并完成学业，如何保持学习动力是初学者面临的一个棘手的问题。宾夕法尼亚大学（University of Pennsylvania）对100万名MOOC用户进行的调查发现，实际学完课程的仅有4%。皮卡德形容自己是一个积极上进、严于律己的人。她会把周六的时间，有时也会拿出周日上午的时间，来进行课程学习，而且每个工作日会花30分钟时间复习。尽管如此，在线学习依然很有挑战性，这正是她创建那个博客的原因。她解释说：“它相当于我的公开承诺，不论我的博客有多少读者，即使只有我和几个朋友会关注我的博客。因为它会激励我，让我知道有其他人在见证我能否兑现自己的承诺。”

    MOOC批评者认为，大规模在线模式不支持教师与学生之间进行有意义的互动。皮卡德参加的最大规模课程足有120,000名学生。有一次，课堂作业要求在讨论区发表评论，结果造成混乱，讨论区一下子涌出了成千上万条信息。她这样评价留言板：“其中的信息量过于庞杂，很难做到每一条都认真去看。”有些课程的学生会组织同一个城市的同学聚会，但像皮卡德这样的国际学生，却可能是某个国家唯一登记某一门课程的人。

    不过，皮卡德对于缺少课堂互动却不以为然——在本科和研究生学习阶段，她已经经历过大量的课堂互动。她解释说：“因为我曾经有过课堂互动的经历，所以我可以在其它地方主动寻找类似的互动。因此我并不觉得在网上学习就有很大的缺失。”

    然而，在传统MBA课程中培养的人际关系往往会延续到课堂之外，成为未来的助力；对于许多商学学生来说，这些人脉才是这个成本超过100,000美元学位的主要卖点。皮卡德也承认，在线学习无法像哈佛或斯坦福的MBA那样积累人脉，但她认为，自己的情况很特殊：她学习MBA的主要目的是掌握技能，而不是积攒人脉。她解释说：“相对于商学院积攒的人脉，开发领域的人脉对我来说更重要。所以我才认为：‘我真正需要的，是那些能够应用到我当前从事的商业开发当中的技能。’”      

    Four months in, Pickard has completed five courses. Initially, she planned to complete 16 courses over two to three years, but she's enjoying the process so much, she'll likely keep going and exceed the credits required by most MBA programs. "There are so many course offerings out there, that it's like a choose-your-own-adventure story," she says. "I loved school, so it's kind of like that excitement you get when you first get the course catalog for the semester, and you're looking through it like, 'Oh, I want to take that, I want to take that," she says. Although the courses vary in terms of quality and difficulty, Pickard points out that the same problem affects bricks-and-mortar programs.

    Pickard also doesn't seem to mind the virtual component. Given that her husband, a foreign service officer, is stationed in Rwanda for the next four years, the online aspect is actually a boon. "My mind is changing, and my thinking about business is really expanding and growing," she says. "I feel the same way that I felt at other times in my life when I was really immersed in an education experience. So from that standpoint, there's a true benefit to MOOCs."

    But the MOOC MBA certainly isn't for everyone. For starters, maintaining the drive to actually attend and complete online classes for two or three years can be tricky. A University of Pennsylvania study of 1 million MOOC users found that only 4% actually completed the courses. Pickard describes herself as motivated and disciplined. She dedicates Saturday and sometimes Sunday mornings to coursework and spends 30 minutes each workday reviewing lessons. But it can still be challenging, which is why she created a blog, she says. "I've made a public commitment, so it doesn't matter how many readers I have, even if it's just me and a few of my friends. It motivates me to know that there's some kind of external evidence of whether I made good on my commitment," she explains.

    MOOC critics contend that the massive online format doesn't allow for meaningful interaction with students and faculty. Pickard's largest course had 120,000 students. An assignment to post a comment in a class-wide discussion forum resulted in a jumbled mess of thousands and thousands of messages. "There was too much going on to really engage substantively," she says of the message board. Some MOOC students arrange citywide meetups around particular courses, but an international student such as Pickard may be the only person in a given country enrolled in a class.

    Pickard's not particularly concerned about missing the classroom interaction -- something she had as an undergraduate and as a master's student. "Because I've done that before, and I've experienced that, and I can search out experiences that can replicate that in other places, I don't feel that I'm missing all that much from taking courses online," she explains.

    But often relationships forged in an traditional MBA program reach far beyond the classroom into the future; for many business students, these networks are the key selling point of a $100,000-plus degree. Pickard readily admits that she's not getting the same connections as a Harvard or Stanford MBA but also asserts that her situation is unique: She's pursuing an MBA primarily to acquire skills, not connections. "My development network is more important to me than a business school network, which is why I was thinking, 'What I really want here are the skills to move into the business end of the development work I'm doing,'" she explains.