Willem van der Kerkhof
The Netherlands

"All the materials, such as pdf’s, animations, pictures, etc. are of high quality and professionally made."

Willem van der Kerkhof is teaching electrical engineering and renewable energies. He participated in the online MicroMasters Program Solar Energy Engineering. Read about his experience.

What was your motivation for enrolling in the program?
I took the courses because I wanted to learn more about the physics of PV cells and to professionally design a PV-system. I am a teacher myself and one of the subjects I teach is PV. There is literature available, but some of it is filled with errors or is not complete. First, I did the MOOC at bachelor level, which I found it very interesting, and I learned a lot from it. And so when the MicroMasters became available, I jumped right in.

How would you describe your online learning experience?
As I had taken the MOOC Solar Energy first, I knew a bit about what to expect. The quality of the course is very high. It is a rather demanding course and cannot be done in a few hours per week. The quality of the video lessons by the lecturers varies a bit. Arno Smets, Miro Zeeman, Olindo Isabella and Laura Ramirez are outstanding. The audio and video quality of the videos is very high. All the materials, such as pdfs, animations, pictures, etc. are of high quality and professionally made. The forum was indispensable. The interaction with other learners and the moderator was very valuable. The first 3 courses were the most important and I enjoyed taking the capstone project. With valuable feedback from Arno Smets, I was able to improve my project significantly.

What did you think of the online learning environment?
The online learning environment is very professionally made. The access to the materials was very easy. The forum works very well because of the moderator. Although I generally prefer to study with other students in real life on campus, the forums work very well as a way of interacting.

What is your advice to someone who would like to take a similar online program?
Just do it!