The Law of the European Union: An Introduction by Europa Institute at Leiden Law School on Coursera

This online course was the one out of all I took yet, that was closest to taking an actual university course, even without taking the signature track.

I jumped at it with the expectation that it is going to be sort of a refreshing session for me, since I have studied European public law quite thoroughly during my law studies. I was wrong, because I really had to work to keep up.

The course material consisted of video lectures again interrupted by check questions, and there were lots and lots of weekly reading partly form a textbook and partly from case law.

There were a lot of hard deadlines, you had to do your homework week by week, or you lost your chance to earn a certificate. There were weekly quizes and weekly assignments like solving cases based on actual European case law.

The case studies were peer reviewed, and this actually was my first experience with the peer review system within a MOOC, which I really enjoyed. I got to check out other people’s work which helped me view the material from different perspectives, and I also got some really useful feedback.

Again, I always emphasize how much it means when there is regular feedback in such courses. Prfessor Stefaan Van den Bogaert also took the time each week to record a video where he reflected on our work from the previous week.

As I said, this was perhaps the one course that required the most work, and yet the one I enjoyed the most, so I earned a statement of accomplishment with distinction again.

In 2013, when I took this course Professor Van den Bogaert mentioned that they are planning future sessions, but I see there were none yet. I hope there will be though, because it is a great course that I can only recommend to everyone whether you work in this area or just want to get to know the European Union better.