Coursera and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: a partnership that operates miracles

Today, January 1, 2018, I turn my deepest gratitude to two institutions. First, I would like to clarify that everybody should understand that institutions are made of people working together under some principles. Institutions prosper when people who serve there do their best, sometimes more than what is required in the principles. That is what I witness at these two institutions I am grateful for today: Coursera and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

I started my relationship with Coursera by mere luck. It was around July 2015 when I was searching for any interesting courses on the internet. I clicked the link Google Search offered and came to a golden pile of knowledge and change. Since then, I embarked in the most important transformational experience of my professional life. After taking some courses in Academic English (University of California, Irvine) and Introduction to Marketing (The Wharton School), I realized that it was a calling for an unimaginable success in my life. Business was my next battleground. I have no managerial experience, but I know that experienced managers started as inexperienced managers. Therefore, I could start as such. I dug deeper in the waters of business education and today I think I know a great deal of the road.

What do I know? I know that in the 21st century, the success of business is to be learning every day. Peter Senge knows it well. Learn from experienced people by doing the hard job, and learn from experts, by rethinking business practices and strategies. I started the first step for the goal of learning from experts by starting the online Coursera courses from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to get the MBA (called iMBA because it is an internet-based MBA).

After two months of study, I can say that I am making great progress in my transformational efforts. I also read a great deal of business books in strategy, marketing and consulting (my particular interest in business). I have to make clear that my country has no name in the list of top 1000 universities in the world. However, on November 3, 2017, I started my MBA at the university ranked 69 in the QS Top Universities Ranking. If you understand the methodologies behind these rankings, you will admire how high I have gone.


God, indeed, operates miracles. Yes, miracles. What else would it be?

Thank you, Illini Community; I am also a fan of your basketball team. For Coursera, a great thank you. I am your soldier. I am ready to do anything you ask me to.


Messias