In general this was an easy, interesting and enjoyable course, Video interviews and lectures by key researchers in this exciting field were a highlight. It's an introductory course so not deep, but fun.

A couple of things significantly detracted from the course for me.

One was a feeling of unqualified evangelism. I think the microbiome is indeed a hugely important field, but the level of hype here, and lack of any critical perspective, was off-putting. This is particularly disturbing for products like probiotics, which have become a huge industry with little solid evidence to support them, or to choose between them. Also, they devote a lot of time to selling the American Gut Project. Which is a good cause, but I would rather they had spent that time teaching me something useful. I resent being duped into watching ads when I've signed up to be educated.

The other thing that bothered me was the course required us to divulge a lot of personal information to other students in pointless, time-consuming projects. I didn't learn anything from these projects and found them annoying.

The pace is not sufficient, especially in the first class. She talks so fast that I cannot catch up and have to pause every ten sec. for note-taking. Also, she is like reading from the screen, which is not looking professional. For the other classes that I take on Coursera, I didn't encounter this. But the topic is interesting for me, and I really want to learn so that I will continue. I hope this problem will be gone as I move forward.

I enjoyed this course and would recommend it.

Bill Whelan

I really enjoyed the course it was really informative.

Course is not even loading kindly fix it

good