First Cohort of Medium Academy
Diary of the medium academy cohort by Mark Ellis
The first cohort of Medium Academy took place on Monday, March 27, 2023. For me, this means an online call at 10 pm with people who share the same interest. So far, this is more like a mastermind group of like-minded leaders than a cohort, which for me, is a positive.
We can find new friendships here that will cement our common interests. Yes, this is a paid course, but looking at a live course as a means to learn is short-sighted. This whole thing will be the basis for creating a great community of writers.
How did it all go?
The cohorts are via the zoom app for Mark at 9 pm, so it’s possible to cover most time zones at once. Someone joins in the morning, someone in the afternoon and someone in the evening, like me, right after logging into zoom.
I was in for a slight fuckup as I didn’t have audio enabled, so I had the first 10 minutes completely silent. If one of the students hadn’t mentioned that he liked the music playing in the background while waiting for it all to start, I wouldn’t have even known there was any audio the whole time.
So if Mark was saying something I don’t know about, sorry 😂. Being technology-focused, zoom on the iPad showed me I still have much to learn. After the audio was set up, the conversation was already in full swing.
After getting the audio working, I added a profile photo to the zoom account, which scared everyone, so I turned on the camera. However, I don’t know if it was much better after all the face that was showing up out of the dark when there were brighter scenes on the iPad.
The first cohort
Our first meeting was very well organised. Mark had a presentation ready, which he supplemented with student interaction. We also introduced ourselves to each other, which was an excellent icebreaker. The student introductions were followed by module introductions, with each part of the presentation offering a Q&A opportunity.
If you are reading this article, you may be hesitant to take a medium course yourself, and there are not a few of them. If you want a real course that adds value, I will not hesitate to join the Solo Club.
However, remember that it is not just a course, so choosing the community option as well, as a community of like-minded people, is priceless.
After a very nice conversation and introduction to the course, we have reached the end of the first lesson, and there is nothing to look forward to but the next lesson, but in the meantime, we can keep in touch within the prepared discord.
Attractions
The students are from different parts of the world, yet we also had two practical neighbours from the UK, which shows that it’s a small world. Within the first hour, there was an interesting question about managing everything if you have young children and a full-time job.
I won’t share the answer as it would be unfair to others who also paid to attend. I am working with Mark on one of the modules, so for now, I hope it will add value for you.
Final thoughts
Since I also read Mark’s ebook several times before taking the course and followed some of his advice, I can say calmly that I trust this course even from the perspective of not having written myself for over a year. Before taking the course, I had also been to the webinars that Mark did for free as a follow-up to his eBook.
Yes, it’s clear to me that there is nothing free. The webinar was an open form of reaching out to people to purchase paid cohorts and collecting data on what they should mention in the course. Still, in these webinars, Mark always answered questions from attendees transparently, and each subsequent webinar was a little further along in terms of how it was conducted and the content.
These live cohorts are great because they’re always going to be relative to the current state of the medium, and I believe Mark has a lot to offer. After all, he’s an editor at a publication with over 16k followers, which means he also knows a little bit of the other side of it. Nothing to do but look forward to the next lesson when we get to the teaching.
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