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Learner Reviews & Feedback for A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment by Indian School of Business

4.8
stars
5,808 ratings

About the Course

What are the determinants of a happy and fulfilling life? This is surely one of life’s biggest questions, and a question that has interested many of our ancestors. Buddha famously gave up his kingdom in search of happiness. Several Greek philosophers (from Aristotle to Epicurus and Plato to Socrates) had their own views on what it takes to be happy. And of course, we all have our own theories about happiness too. How valid are our theories? Until recently, if you wished for an answer to this question, you would've been forced to base it on discussions with spiritual leaders. Or, if you were lucky, you could've based it on late-night (and perhaps intoxicant-fueled) conversations with friends and family. Happily, all that has changed now. Over the past decade-and-a-half, scientists have gotten into the act big time. We now have a pretty good idea of what it takes to lead a happy and fulfilling life. This course, based on the award-winning class offered both at the Indian School of Business and at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, developed by Prof. Raj Raghunathan (aka "Dr. Happy-smarts") draws content from a variety of fields, including psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral decision theory to offer a tested and practical recipe for leading a life of happiness and fulfillment. Although not mandatory, reading Prof. Raj's forthcoming book, titled If you're so smart, why aren't you happy? can help you review and assimilate the material covered in this book at your leisure. For Coursera learners alone, the hardcover version of the book is available for a deep discount of 50%, plus shipping and handling. You can order the hardcover for 50% off by writing to Aaron at: Aaron@800ceoread.com. Please mention that you are a student of the "coursera happiness course" in your email. The course will feature guest appearances by several well-known thought leaders, including: - Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational and, soon to be released, Irrationally Yours), - Ed Diener (“Dr. Happiness”), - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of Flow), By taking this course, you will discover the answers to questions such as: - Why aren’t the smart-and-the-successful as happy as they could—or should—be - What are the “7 Deadly Happiness Sins” that even the smart and the successful commit?, and - What are the “7 Habits of the Highly Happy” and how can you implement them in your life? By the end of the course, I expect students who have been diligent with the lectures and exercises to not just gain a deeper understanding of the science of happiness, but to also be significantly happier....

Top reviews

CR

Apr 23, 2018

Excellent course, Professor Raj is great. I found it very helpful to see what types of personality traits I have that may contribute to my happiness level and possible approaches to dealing with them.

LS

Jan 23, 2017

This course is a joy! I cannot recommend it highly enough. Practical advice based on long-term research, interviews with worldwide experts on the topics discussed, and a fabulous professor. So great!

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51 - 75 of 2,036 Reviews for A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment

By Loo W M

Aug 27, 2016

5 star for effort.

4 star for content - some of the findings are open to debate but are seemingly portrayed as "truths"

0 star for trying to obtaining personal information (name, email) under the pretext of assignment when such information are not required for completing the assignment.

By Petar T

Nov 9, 2016

insightful, inspirational mostly, informative, but gives an impression of a false pep-talks.. the lecturer is very nice but the over-accentuated humor and false bonding with the audience diminishes the overall good feeling of the course

By Lauren K

May 1, 2020

I did like some of the science, and facts behind the course - but for me it was just too long. Lessons with videos/readings/exercises taking 4 hours to complete is too much - takes the fun out of learning.

By Cecilia G

Sep 25, 2015

Very good content, oo long, too many words to get to the point, and too many instructions on assignments.

By Dorothy H

Apr 4, 2016

What makes this course useful are the exercises so unless you are paying, don't bother, and it's not really worth paying for as it's just a synopsis of stuff you easily find on youtube.

By Robert J B J

Sep 23, 2020

please remove this course from my coursera studies. i never intended to sign up for this, i just tried to read what it was about.

By venkat

Sep 1, 2015

Instead of These Classes Spiritual Classes will be good ...

By Stephanie P

Aug 15, 2020

Good material, enthusiastic teacher but the jokes and jabs are outdated and insulting to some.

By Florian M

Mar 5, 2016

The content of the course was actually very helpful, but the way the assignments are made took all my motivation away. They use an external tool where one has to enter the information for the assigments, at the end you get a PDF and then you have to copy paste that again into Coursera. The emails are often confusing and some assignements require you to do something each day for seven days in a row, but don't really warn you about that anywhere. So when you think that you have 3 days left to meet the deadline ... wrong, you should've started 4 days ago.

This in combination with the ridiculously detailed instruction videos, which consist to 95% of a tutor reading aloud what is written on the assignment webpage. Chances are you get bored quickly and miss the one information that was NOT given on the assignment webpage.

In total, it is very sad that this course started so great, but the technical and organizational problems reduced the motivation so much.

By Cyril D

Jan 30, 2016

I paid to get a certificate and did achieve good marks on the tests and assignments up to week 4 if memory serves. And still, I "dropped out" before the end of the course. Why?

- the tests trip you on little bits of trivia, as opposed to assess your understanding of key concepts. Another course, “learning how to learn”, has the best tests in that regard;

- the modules are too long. When you do this in addition to working, it becomes a chore;

- the assignments: instructions are tedious & confusing. As for the assignment themselves, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was a test subject with data being gathered in the back. Not what I signed up (and paid) for.

So it’s a pity and I do regret having had to stop attending this online class. I was attracted to the topic, I enjoyed the personality of the host, but all the above made it a chore.

By Kathy T

Jul 15, 2020

Really not impressed with the inclusion of cruel animal experiments in this course - it's hardly conducive to happiness to be reminded of these totally unnecessary experiments. I know what this experiment was without watching the video and I'm disgusted it was even mentioned. Section on flow confusing and contradictory. I really wanted to like this course and greatly enjoyed Dr Raj's lecturing style, but cannot continue with this content.

By Karolina L

Apr 20, 2020

To be honest I survived 1,5 week and it's extremely hard to do. I actually didn't find out anything what I don't know, almost every book which I read about happiness or motivation was more interesting. It is very long, tedious and personally I feel like I wasted my time. Maybe it's good for people with a lot of free time, and someone who had never read a book about personal development.

By Basil G

Apr 27, 2020

The whole project is old, the video lectures are from 2014. Furthermore, it's ambiguous purpose to make us all happy was never accomplished. Deas Sirs, don't make promises you can't keep! Though proffessor is a very happy person -and very funny too, he talks too much and says things everyboby knows, so what's the use of wathcing this?

By Maria V M

May 18, 2020

The information shared was very valuable. However, the way it was delivered was not that good. After a couple of weeks, it became too much of the same. The quizzes were more about memorizing than really living the con

By Nazli E

Nov 15, 2015

Lots of unnecessary information included in each video which make them long and boring. Number and length of videos in each week are too much while the "practical" information you get are not enough!

By Shaleni V

Aug 14, 2020

the only thing i find difficult is timing. the duration of the course is very long which makes me lose my interest.

By santi s

May 5, 2020

too much explanation, i think it can be sorted and directly to the point

By Magnus E N

Sep 18, 2020

I can not take this seriously, sorry

By Rahul M

Aug 25, 2020

Opinions are purely personal - I enrolled for this course looking at reviews from other students. I am not convinced that the research/researchers can convince me to be happy. Towards the end, the course talks about mindfulness. If that was what the course had to conclude with, not sure why I went through all the lectures! I believe that if I read a couple of inspirational quotes everyday, it will have a better impact than taking the long course!

By Mahesh W

Feb 4, 2024

Peer grading is time consuming rest the content is good . You can look for better course , which doesn't have tooo many peer gradings , because nobody grade you so quickly and you don't get certification of completion .

By Anamika

Feb 10, 2016

The course modules are too long and at times what the speaker wants to share gets confusing

By cara h

Sep 23, 2020

I try to unenroll the course, but the "unenroll" function doesn't work!

By Задойный А

Jul 18, 2020

Бесполезная куча ненаучной ерунды и домыслов.

By Diana P C M

Jan 19, 2016

No esta en español

By Mohammad A M

Oct 22, 2020

not very exciting