What is a Mind?

All my life I have wanted to do something that would really interest and excite me. I am now 82 and I found the course did both. Some people of my age and younger say that they do not mind dying now, they have enjoyed their lives and lived long enough. I feel the opposite, courses like this make me want to live longer and learn and experience more. The course was made very interesting. Prof. Solms is not like some of the dry as dust academics of the past, his informal approach and use of words such as pee, buggered up and hell of made him sound like a cool guy. He made me think harder than I have ever thought before in order to understand the concepts and, later, to remember them and combine them to answer the quizzes and assignments. Anybody who does the course will owe him a debt of gratitude.
James O'Connor

The good:
- The courses talks about a few interesting concepts, one does feel more knowledgeable after finishing it
- Every end of the week, there is section where Mark answers questions from the audience
- the material for each video can be downloaded
- there is no distraction to other people or other videos, all one sees and listens to is Prof. Solomon
- most chapters have a comment section, which creates additional discussions
- most chapters ask you a question and you can contribute by adding your comments
- you can review as many assignments as you can (I even had 12, for the second assignment, most of them were rubbish, people were not talking about something completely different)

The bad:
- there are only 2 assignments to be completed, sometime during Week 1 and sometime Week 5
- first one is asked to talk about confabulation and after one learns about what it means; I Googled and watched a video, as this term was brand new
- the tests, 3 or 4, have questions which, if answering incorrectly, one can try until they are correct; one can also choose to skip them
- there are some videos where the professor stutters (bad editing), compered to all the other videos
- after each week you will see "Buy the certificate" page
- in week 6, there is a page that even has a a video of people who got the certificate and talk about how they use it (one of the guys says that he added it to his LinkedIn and showed it to his mom)
- you can write anything in the assignment or comments; there is no grading system, it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with someone

The ugly:
- there is no final exam - one could just mark every page is completed (never watching the video), skip or guess the correct answers to quizzes, write anything in the assignments (even in a language that is not English)
- there is no feeling of completing it - no congratulation, just a "Thanks" and "Now you can share what you've learned" - felt pathetic, disappointed
- i completed 6 weeks in 8 days (didn't take that much time to complete it; no need to wait for the next week to start)
- week 6 can be skipped entirely (no exam, no quiz), just some information on depression

Would have given it 4 stars if it had a final exam and made me feel gratified. Instead, I just feel pleased, good that I completed something that I started last week. Ehh...

This is the first MOOC that I have undertaken and i found the subject matter extremely interesting, well presented and captivating.
Initially it was rather daunting and I spent a lot of time looking up words - jargon to me but not to someone who works in this field or who has undertaken research or learning through similarly focused courses. I enjoyed the challenge of researching unfamiliar words though - all part of my modern day Seeking.
Weeks 2 and 3 were definitely the most challenging for me and i did take a break which helped and then from week 4 onwards things started to fall into place - at least to the extent that I felt I made new learning that I could relate to other learning.
The hardest part for me was the interacting with others taking the course as this was all by leaving comments which then had to be followed back through notifications and this didn’t flow smoothly for me. I have taken part in much smaller online learning groups and they allowed for some immediate interaction, which although not perfect felt a bit better for me. Please don’t let that put you off, the course content far outweighs this necessity. I will certainly give other MOOCs a go when i find one that looks like it can stimulate my mind as much as this course did.

My background is not Psychology nor have I done any course on it although I'm interested in the topic. So when I saw this course on Future Learn I was really intrigued, it was free & thought I'd 'give it a go' to avoid my grey cells turning to mush during the Covid pandemic.
I was absorbed from the start, Prof Solms is a very engaging character & explains things with humour even though some of detail went over my head! The course is well set out regarding information not too much but enough to get you thinking, videos of Prof Solms answering questions with transcripts to read if you wish which personally I did as I found it easier to concentrate. In some cases there is a recommended reading list for further information & our mentor would also post links to help with our questions. We were all encouraged to post on the forum our thoughts etc it is well worth reading these from other students so interesting to read opinions from other cultures/countries. There were some brilliant discussions between all of us so don't be afraid to join in!

I said at the beginning the course was free well I paid to upgrade as I wanted to do the course at my own pace & to enjoy it & enjoy it I did! I cannot recommend this course enough it was an absolute pleasure & totally absorbing.

I am on the the last chapter of Mark Solms book. Some of it goes well out of my comfort zone - that area where I am refusing to develop currently - such as the background needed in physic and the science of computational algorithms but the general principles are so clear. I would need to go back to the more challenging chapters. But it is a book as mind-blowing as reviewers say it is and as innovative. As someone who has been reluctant to abandon Freud despite having a degree in psychology that continually tried to ask me to do if I were to face the subject 'Maturely', this course has been manna from heaven. If you want to see how institutional repression and enforced underdevelopment therein works look at the long history of post-Freud psychology. Liberated, I feel! Nevertheless this course gives enough not to need the book. It is brilliant - but I bet it tempts you to buy. It did me.