Thoughts on Coursera?

[Steve Chan]

Hi everyone,

 

We were recently presented with an opportunity to work with Coursera and want to see if anyone has had any experience using their platform.

 

Looking specifically for folks who've tried their programs out and personal experience.

 

TIA!

 

 

[jaslion]

It's ok really. It's helpful to learn things and be introduced to them but I feel like things are a bit to surface level sometimes? Also depending on the course and tiering some extra support and whatnot can be a bit lacking as I noticed that when doing an applied physics score I got stuck and wasn't able to get an answer to a question quickly. Took 4 days to resolve that was in 2022.

 

Went on there to do a data structures course as that was required by a employer in 2023 and whilst it was a GREAT course I felt very under supported if I ran into an issue and even flat out just got sent to a solutions site which was kinda lame as I wanted to understand WHY I couldn't resolve the issue and HOW I could do it properly not see the solution and just copy paste that.

 

On that note it's SUPER easy to cheat on the things there as most are multiple choice with no timer, solutions that you can just copy/paste the question in google and get the answer as a lot of courses are only updated slowly and most things for certificates aren't monitored. But hey thats typical for online classes (I know I had to do some corona IT setup for colleges during it and man did students do a DAMN good job sometimes).

 

Overall I do LIKE them as a gateway to knowledge and enabling you to form a base where you can then pursue more advance knowledge at other institutions more made for it. Just don't call it the be all end all one stop shop they sometimes do claim to be

 

Edit:

 

Forgot some important info. There are courses with peer reviewed assignments and such and a lot of groups have empty uploads or random files uploaded. However their peers can still say that YES this is a good assignment and pass this way. Basically certificate farming and this is a legit problem. Coursera has worked on it but peer reviewed courses are unfortunately still plagued with this as I did have it happen to me in 2020 on a networking refresh course.

[Birblover12]

It's good, perhaps a little surface level like @jaslion said. There's a LOT of different options for getting certs that employers actually care about, sometimes the website can bug out while doing a course (like I can click on certain things and they won't respond, requiring a refresh of the page) but perhaps that's user error.

 

Also Jaslion is right many peer review courses are plagued with literal empty submissions and people getting "free certs" by having people say it's good when it's a junk upload. Might be worth checking with your Coursera rep about it, since it's not uncommon to either have people straight up plagiarizing or submiting dead uploads with the peer reviews (and is stupid when you're the one being given those to review as well).

 

 

[FlyingPotato_is_taken]

22 hours ago, jaslion said:

Went on there to do a data structures course as that was required by a employer in 2023

Assuming you wouldn't be working within the industry/your employer asking for this: Would you say it was worth it? Is there value behind it (assuming you are looking for the first job in this industry)?

 

 

 

Quote

7 months, 6 hours a week

Learn at your own pace

6 hours/week, 7 months that's only 168 hours to "Qualify for in-demand job titles: Front-End Developer, Website Developer, Software Engineer".

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, FlyingPotato_is_taken said:

Would you say it was worth it? Is there value behind it (assuming you are looking for the first job in this industry)?

Id say its a good step to show that you are willing to learn/learnjng to a future employer. Its also a good way to get a structured start into a subject.

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, FlyingPotato_is_taken said:

6 hours/week, 7 months that's only 168 hours to "Qualify for in-demand job titles: Front-End Developer, Website Developer, Software Engineer".

This is for like level 1 knowledge with rhe goal you go do a project on your own or go into a entry level position.

[kirashi]

On 1/29/2025 at 2:09 PM, Steve Chan said:

Hi everyone,

 

We were recently presented with an opportunity to work with Coursera and want to see if anyone has had any experience using their platform.

 

Looking specifically for folks who've tried their programs out and personal experience.

 

TIA!

While I can't speak to their paid offerings, back in 2020 I did find completing the free "The Science of Well Being" course to be a rather intuitive and easy to follow experience, at least compared to some competitor's platforms. (You can create the best course ever, but if the learning platform you host it on is unintuitive or generally sucks to use, learners will be distracted by the bad platform rather than actually learning.)

https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being

 

If LTT picks them up as a sponsor, perhaps LTT employees could utilize various learning platforms (like Corsera, Udemy, StackSkills, etc.), then after 6-12 months we could get a review video showing a completely unbiased comparison of these learning platforms so anyone interested in teaching themselves S.T.E.M. topics knows which platforms are decent, and which platforms they should stay away from. Just an idea.