The Science of Happiness
All-Time Top 100University of California, Berkeley via edX
- Provider edX
- Cost Free Online Course (Audit)
- Session Upcoming
- Language English
- Certificate $49 Certificate Available
- Effort 4-5 hours a week
- Duration 11 weeks long
- Learn more about MOOCs
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Overview
"A free eight-week Science of Happiness course that will offer practical, research-backed tips on living a happy and meaningful life." - The Huffington Post
We all want to be happy, and there are countless ideas about what happiness is and how we can get some. But not many of those ideas are based on science. That's where this course comes in.
"The Science of Happiness" is the first MOOC to teach the ground-breaking science of positive psychology, which explores the roots of a happy and meaningful life. Students will engage with some of the most provocative and practical lessons from this science, discovering how cutting-edge research can be applied to their own lives. Created by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, the course will zero in on a fundamental finding from positive psychology: that happiness is inextricably linked to having strong social connections and contributing to something bigger than yourself--the greater good. Students will learn about the cross-disciplinary research supporting this view, spanning the fields of psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and beyond.
What's more, "The Science of Happiness" offers students practical strategies for tapping into and nurturing their own happiness, including trying several research-backed activities that foster social and emotional well-being, and exploring how their own happiness changes along the way.
The course's co-instructors, Dacher Keltner and Emiliana Simon-Thomas, are not only leading authorities on positive psychology but also gifted teachers skilled at making science fun and personal. They'll be joined by world-renowned experts discussing themes like empathy, mindfulness, and gratitude--experts including Barbara Fredrickson, Paul Ekman, Sonja Lyubomirsky, and Jon Kabat-Zinn. Health professionals who register can earn continuing education units for their participation.
Consider signing up for this course with a friend or group - tweet about your registration, share it on Facebook, and use the buddy system to stay on track. Join the conversation on The Greater Good Science Center Facebook page, or in the BerkeleyX: GG101x The Science of Happiness Facebook group.
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Reviews for edX's The Science of Happiness Based on 31 reviews
- 5 stars 68%
- 4 stars 23%
- 3 star 3%
- 2 stars 6%
- 1 star 0%
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From a personal standpoint, I thought the course is a bit overdone in terms of length (11 weeks). Even long courses are nice but at some points I found them extra informative in areas which a person might not be that interested in like the physical physio-psychology stuff (serotonin, dopamine,etc).
A particular highlight was the tracking of feelings, a Journal kind of thing to record and understand your state of mind.
Final words: It's a good course for anyone who wants to understand what is Happiness and the ways you can use it but remember the name of the course is 'SCIENCE of happiness' so there would be research studies and a lot of sciency side of it.
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