Network Students Gain Practical Skills from Online Courses
Mustafa Hawwash is a junior at Al-Quds Bard College majoring in Global Studies and Diplomacy.
The classes have significantly expanded the range of course offerings available to students across the network and have supplied an abundance of opportunities to share knowledge and perspectives that they don’t usually encounter with their regular courses.
In addition to the academic benefits of the courses, students say they have also acquired practical skills and abilities that prove to be invaluable as they prepare for advancing to university or professional life. Read on to learn about the professional skills, approaches, and mindsets two students have developed while taking online courses.
Mustafa Hawwash is a junior at Al-Quds Bard College in Jerusalem majoring in Global Studies and Diplomacy.
MH: Last year I took two online courses: “Civic Engagement and Social Action,” which focused on how to solve social problems, and “Global Citizenship,” which emphasized the global and unified identity of humanity. I also took two other network courses – “Epistemology of Conspiracy Theories” focusing on the manipulation of information in the news media, and “Environmental Ethics,” which presented ethical and moral responsibilities towards the environment.
These four courses helped me to explore Western philosophy and the subject of the environment and helped strengthen my commitment to social progress and understanding the interconnectedness of humanity. I learned the value of being a global citizen and a cosmopolitan and the importance of critical analysis. I found that taking courses with students from all over is a good way to learn new things about the world, giving me multiple perspectives on many issues. In the past, we have discussed many of the same topics at AQB but the online courses offered new approaches for analyzing them.
I think of all the lessons learned through taking online courses, the main one is the importance of being open-minded in ways that would permit me to benefit from other’s inputs and perspectives. Another skill I acquired was the ability to work under pressure and an appreciation of free speech, all which played pivotal roles in fostering my learning process.
The courses made a significant change in my life as a student of global politics because I found that each class went beyond the specific topic of the course, making linkages with many other related issues. It was like a network of thoughts; the topic of the course was at the center but there was also additional analysis from multiple angles and perspectives.
I did not find this in my previous classes, which aimed to discuss only the things directly related to the central topic of the course. In my online courses, professors and colleagues paved the way for me to express an opinion related to the central topic but from a broad perspective. For instance, during “Environmental Ethics,” I realized I was very interested in learning much more about the environment, as the course offered both ethical and moral angles of our treatment of nature and animals. The class pushed me to rethink each thing I was doing that was bad for the environment, making a significant impact on my life.
Gilbert Ntawuyankira is a student at the HUBS for Connected Learning Initiatives in Kenya who has taken more than a dozen online courses, including “Civic Engagement and Social Action,” “Kleptocracy: The Global Political Economy of Grand Corruption,” “Race and Ethnicity in the Global Perspective,” “Global Freedom of Expression,” and “Social Entrepreneurship.”
GN: Online courses benefit displaced students such as myself because they let us access subjects we could not access in the past. Some of the practical skills and personal benefits that I got from taking the courses include professional capacities such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication. I improved my English speaking, reading, writing, and listening skills, as well as my digital literacy, using tools such as email and zoom. I also gained personal empowerment in the context of connecting with a huge global community of learners from different backgrounds, encouraging me to feel less isolated.
Taking online courses as a refugee student has considerably changed my trajectory in many ways, providing hope and a vision for the future. It has shifted my mindset from just surviving to thinking seriously about my future, opening up new paths where I might be able to pursue further education.
Post Date: 05-21-2025