[samvher]

I was going to say that all my favorite courses were kind of unique, and didn't share any particular characteristics, but writing this comment I found they actually all share excellent problem sets and an engaging instructor. Having taken ~25-30 online courses, the ones that stood out were:

- Discrete Optimization (Coursera/Melbourne university, Pascal van Hentenryck): had competitive optimization assignments and course leaderboards. The professor oozed enthousiasm and the nature of the assignments was great for the competitive setup (many different approaches possible, and there were always problems which you would not be able to solve to optimality).

- Microeconomics (EdX/MIT, Jonathan Gruber): very good assignments that made you discover things yourself. Professor presented with a lot of humor and this course was clearly refined over many iterations on campus. Lectures were actually recorded in a classroom setting so not tuned for MOOC delivery at all.

Honorable mentions for Computer Graphics (EdX/UC San Diego, Ravi Ramamoorthi, perfect pacing and balanced, broad set of assignments) and Underactuated Robotics (EdX/MIT, Russ Tedrake, fascinating material and challenging, elegant assignments).