Mentioning MOOC in personal statement

[CSallday]

I am interested in pursuing a PhD in artificial intelligence/machine learning. Because of the way my school works with prerequisites, I will not be able to complete the AI and machine learning courses at my university before grad school applications are due. I have plenty of research experience, but none of it is in AI or machine learning.

 

If I take MOOC courses in machine learning and AI this summer on Coursera and successfully complete them, is it worth mentioning this on my personal statement? Will it help to show that I do in fact understand the basics of these fields? Would it hurt? Would it hurt to not include this information, given my currrent situation?

 

Thanks for any advice!

[DSA]

I would think it would be worth a couple sentences in the personal statement (not on the CV). That's what I did -- I've taken a bunch of MOOCs, and I had a quick mention of it and how it showed my passion for independent goal-setting and love of learning. In my personal statement, I had a footnote with a link to my personal webpage where I host the PDF certificates of accomplishment for the MOOCs I've taken.

 

You can see my results in my signature -- not sure if it helped or not, but I think it wouldn't hurt.

[Icydubloon]

If the MOOC led to a project you did then sure mention it. If you took the MOOC and that was it, I wouldn't mention it.

[Shamrock_Frog]

Is it likely to hurt if you mention it? I can't imagine it would.