Athabasca University offers its full-course catalogue as online courses, and given their range of offerings for the interdisciplinary program at the MA level for law-related studies, I thought I would do a deeper dive into what they have listed.

Undergraduate courses

They have some 754 courses listed across 69 “sub-faculties”, although I confess that most hold little interest for me.

• Accounting — 10 courses, not bad, and I could see some interest for one on not-for-profit accounting as well as principles of auditing, but not something I’m willing to pay for probably. I’ve done that stuff in my career, could do something online on Coursera for a refresher.
• Administration — This looks a lot like my undergrad program, with 11 courses. None attract my interest, just noting they’re there.
• Anthropology — There are 25 courses and a fairly robust program. Not anything I really want to spend time learning, but nice looking program.
• Art History — Three courses, two by time and one on Canadian visual culture. Very interesting looking, but not compelling.
• Astronomy and Astrophysics — I was super excited to see that they had a category for this, even if it ended up only being three courses. Until I saw that two of them are just project proposals, meaning only a single course, which is an intro to Astronomy. Could be worth taking, but there are lots of free versions of equivalent material online.
• Communications Studies — 22 courses and like anthropology, a pretty decent selection. Mass media, communication theory, computing, information literacy, social movements, pop culture, cultural policy, etc. There’s a decent-looking one about Digital Storytelling, albeit a bit basic.
• Computer Science — Not surprisingly, there are 42 courses listed for undergraduate-level work. It’s not a bad listing, but there is better out there. It covers the basics, plus a bit more, but not what I’m looking for, a little too bland.
• Criminal Justice — While I had already looked at the law-related graduate courses, there are a few at the undergraduate level that look interesting, such as victims of crime, the psychology of criminal behaviour, civil liberties and individual rights, offender rehabilitation, and sex crimes.
• Education — There are 8 courses listed, and I wasn’t expecting to be that interested. But there are several that might be kind of enlightening, including a history of the Canadian learning society, the purposes of adult education, training & development in organizations (all three close to my day job) and a fourth on law and ethics in education.
• English — wow, I was NOT expecting 35 courses. Novels, short stories, poetry, plays, drama, Shakespeare, America, composition, links to film, and six or seven in creative writing for different forms.
• Philosophy — There are 17 courses, with five or six tied to ethics, any of which would be interesting, although potentially repetitive.
• Physics — There are 8 courses, and none go anywhere near the astronomy side. Very disappointing.
• Psychology — I am very excited by 41 courses in Psych, more than enough to keep me busy if I wanted to spend two years blasting through some courses after retirement. They even have ones tied to the study of career development, learning, adult development, learning through life, and even one in forensic psychology. They all look awesome.
• Religious Studies — There is a good one on comparative world religions, as well as one on death and dying in comparative religions. There are 3 more, but nothing compelling.

I skipped over economics, finance, governance, history, HR management, labour, sociology, and legal studies, although all of them had some interesting options.

Graduate courses

For the graduate courses, they have 335 over 85 sub-faculties. Here are the ones that interested me enough to dive deeper:

• BOLT — Short for Blended and Online Learning and Teaching, at first glance it seemed cool. In brief, I thought it was the policy and issues surrounding online learning. Except of the 9 courses, 5 are directly tied to K-12 issues, 3 more are relatively K-12 in scope, and one that is a bit larger in focus. I would love to look at issues such as the complete history of Athabasca University being established, running online platforms, engaging with standard learning advocates, professional education seekers, etc. Even teachers, professors, and professionals who all assume they know how to teach in a digital world even if they don’t. They have a doctorate option in distance education, but more aggressive than I’m looking for, really.
• COMP — They have 41 courses, of which about 10 look interesting. But to be honest, I can’t tell. I don’t know what I need yet.
• Graduate counselling and applied psychology — There are 18 courses, and like their basic psych program, some interesting elements outside of the counselling element. Like health psychology and “the vital role that health psychology plays in helping people make lifestyle changes, cope with health-related issues, and maintain a positive identity if the face of chronic health challenges.”
• Governance — They have four courses, including governance and leadership (meh), innovative public management (maybe), global governance and law (intriguing) and privacy and transparency in a networked world (cool).
• Legal Studies — They have six courses that are weird — when I looked at legal issues earlier, it was all around political economy and political studies approaches to interdisciplinary issues. This “heading” is all about drafting legislation, which is highly technical.
• Interdisciplinary Studies — They have 33 official INTD courses, but almost all of the courses could be included as electives. You could even build your own MFA degree (Writing the self; creative non-fiction; digital storytelling; narrative possibilities; and what I tell you may not be true (autobiography in a different lens).
• MDDE — Building off what was above in BOLT or other distance education, there are 34 courses tied to a M.Ed. in Open, digital and distance education. If I were doing it for work, two-thirds of the courses would be relevant. Foundations of adult education; experiential learning; technological apps; adult education and lifelong learning; international issues; mobile learning; and AI are just some of the courses that would interest me.

So, is that “it”? Just a list of courses?

No and yes. 🙂

No, it’s not it. But “yes”, it was a good starting point to see if they have a bunch of courses that interest me, and they do. Assuming courses run about $2K each, if I did get a 17K education allowance from the government upon retirement, I could do 8 classes or so at their expense. I confess that’s kind of attractive. There are at LEAST 50 that I would consider. Prioritizing would initially seem a challenge.

Unless…

I consider an actual degree. Like the M.Ed in Open, Digital and Distance Education. It definitely ranks up there on the substantive side with a MA in Legal Studies or even an MFA. The content would be amazing to have time to dig into, and would help future books I have planned on skills in Canada and adult learning.

If I went the thesis route, it would be five core courses, two electives and a thesis (worth four courses). If I went the coursework route, it would be five core courses, five electives, and a Capstone project. (11 courses in total).

Let’s see, then. For the core curriculum courses, the first would be obvious (an intro course). The second, research methods, is one I would try to get out of actively. I’m not paying $2K to take an intro to quant and qual research methods or how to critique research. The eval is also just three assignments plus participation in discussions. Snooze. The third is about foundations of instructional design, and is a bit about basic pedagogy with addons for the ODDE components; seems okay. Then it gets interesting. I have to make two decisions. First, I can EITHER take a further course in ID tied to ODDE or a course in leading and managing ODDE. Ah, ID it is. Then, I can either take a survey course on current tech apps OR technology in ed and training. Umm…aren’t those the same course? Oh, nope, they’re different. The first is how to use the technology, the second is how to plan for implementation. Planning it probably would be.

Then I would have between 2 and 5 electives. High on my list is adult education and lifelong learning.

It’s basically me. That’s what I’m looking at with these courses. Except from a societal perspective. I would gladly sign up. There are others on mobile learning.

If I get money to study, it could be worth it. If I don’t, maybe a course or two.

However, there are others I could consider as well. I don’t NEED a degree (M.Ed or otherwise), and you can take individual courses as “non-program” students. Decisions, decisions.