If you’re looking to expand your education, you may be wondering if Coursera is the right learning platform for you; so I decided to try and explain Coursera and answer as many questions as possible, so you can make that decision with peace of mind 🙂
In recent years, online learning platforms have become extremely popular. The demand for distance learning has led many universities and colleges around the world to join forces with these platforms to offer their courses, trainings, and even degrees – for online learning. One of the leading platforms on the market is Couresra, which offers over 3,500 courses, specializations, and degrees – with more than 40 million students worldwide.
In this article, I intend to take an in-depth look at what Couresra has to offer, talk about the certificates they issue, examine the costs of the courses, and give my honest opinion on whether the price is worth it.
So let’s get started!
What is Coursera ?
Coursera is a giant education platform that offers “Massive Open Online Courses” (MOOCs) in a wide range of fields. Coursera’s goal is to provide quality education to the masses: they partner with more than 150 world-renowned universities and colleges, offer more than 3,500 courses, hundreds of “specializations” (we’ll get to that later), four full academic degrees – and teach more than 40 million students. Yes, I know. That’s a crazy number.
All studies on Coursera are 100% online. Coursera also has its own app, so once you sign up for a particular course, all the materials are available to the student at any given moment (and anywhere in the world – an advantage I really enjoyed when I studied graphic design during a long trip to the East).
Studying on Coursera is ideal for anyone who wants to learn something new, and for anyone who wants to improve their skills, especially if the course material is geared towards a specific career.
10 Best Coursera Courses and Certificates in 2020
If you feel like jumping ahead and seeing what Coursera has to offer, I’ve done the work for you: I scoured their website, checked reviews and opinions, and built a list of the “best” for you:
| course | Details |
| FREE CLASS FROM YALE – The Science of Well-Being | Read more |
| GOOGLE – Google IT Automation with Python | Read more |
| IBM – IBM Data Science | Read more |
| STANFORD – Machine Learning | Read more |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN – Python for Everybody | Read more |
| GOOGLE – Google IT Support | Read more |
| DEEPLEARNING.AI – Deep Learning | Read more |
| JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY – Data Science | Read more |
| GEORGIA TECH – Fundamentals of Engineering Exam Review | Read more |
| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA AND UNICEF – Social Norms, Social Change | Read more |
How much does it cost to study at Coursera ?
First of all, it’s important to know that Coursera has thousands of free courses. Once you sign up, you get instant access to all the learning materials, including video lectures, and you don’t pay a dime. However, if you’re interested in a Coursera certificate, there are three types of pricing, and they’re very easy to understand. Let’s take a look at them:
Coursera Course Completion Certificate
As we said, there are lots and lots of free courses, but Coursera requires you to pay for the certificate they issue at the end, as well as for the exams and submissions that are reviewed by fellow students (I’ll explain exactly how this works in a moment). So this is the lowest fee you’ll pay on Coursera, and the amounts here range from $29 to $99.
In most cases, this is a one-time payment, which gives you access to the course for 180 days. Each course has a slightly different price and you can see the exact price on the course homepage.
Important: You may be presented with the option to make a comprehensive subscription, which includes the entire Coursera course catalog. If you choose this, you will still need to register for each specific course you want to take, but you will not have to pay any additional fees.
Coursera Internships
This option gives you a certificate of specialization in a specific career field that interests you: Certain courses are defined as part of a particular “Specialization,” and you cannot register for these courses for free. They are available to those who subscribe to Coursera, and here too the payment is very transparent and friendly: you pay a fixed amount (and not particularly high) each month, and then the entire “specialization” – and all the courses it includes – are available to you indefinitely. In other words: after you subscribe, you will pay a fixed monthly amount until you complete all the courses in the specialization, or until you cancel your subscription.
Courses in specializations typically last between four and six weeks, and cost between $39 and $79 per month. The difference comes from the frequent changes and improvements they undergo; almost all courses are updated as new and relevant information needs to be incorporated into the course material.
In specializations, as long as your subscription is active, you will have free access (and without ads!) to all the learning materials, in all the courses in the specialization. If you later want access to a course that is not included in this specialization, you will of course have to pay an additional fee – but in principle, specializations are designed and structured so that comprehensive relevant material in a particular field is included in each specialization.
Important: Coursera offers a one-week free trial on all specializations, so if you start a particular specialization and realize it’s not for you, you get all your money back. This is very important because it means that anyone who wants to learn professional things on Coursera can test and try until they find the specialization that’s right for them, without risking their money at all.
Online academic degrees on Coursera
So yes, there is such a thing as an online degree. It is a full academic degree, recognized worldwide, that comes with an official diploma from a quality educational institution.
Completing an academic degree on Coursera takes between one and three years, depending on the degree of course. The price is between $15,000 and $25,000, a price quite similar to the price of an average degree in Israel, but much lower than the price of an American degree. Considering that most of the degrees on Coursera are official degrees from recognized academic institutions, the price here is also very affordable….. but perhaps less so for us as Israelis 🙂
Is it worth it?
In my opinion, yes. Coursera provides a very comprehensive platform, giving people all over the world the opportunity to develop their knowledge in a wide range of subjects, with more than 3,500 courses, specializations and degrees. It is worth noting that Coursera is an open platform, meaning that anyone who wants to can upload a course there – and this means that there are different levels there in terms of depth and quality of the courses.
So that you can get an idea of how it really works and what you will get when you sign up for a Coursera course, I want to touch on each of the important things now, briefly. That way, you can know exactly what Coursera is, and make a smart decision that is right for you. To make everything clearer, I even took screenshots 🙂
Coursera courses
Coursera currently has five learning programs:
Courses
Coursera lets you choose from 3,500 courses taught by top instructors from renowned universities and educational institutions. Courses include video lectures, graded exams, peer-reviewed assignments (they’ll give you feedback on your work, and you’ll give them feedback on theirs), recorded homework, and a group discussion forum. After you complete all coursework, you’ll receive a certificate of completion, as well as a digital version of it that you can share or add to your website/LinkedIn page. This certificate may not be a professional credential that will be respected by academic institutions, but it will give you a wealth of knowledge that you can probably use during a job interview.
Specializations
If you’re looking to specialize in a specific professional skill, Coursera’s specialization programs are probably the right fit for you. Each specialization is essentially a series of courses that will help you reach your goal; a curated group of courses on the same topic. For example, let’s say you want to study data science. You can take a single course, or you can choose to specialize in a specific area—taking a cluster of courses related to data science, covering different aspects of the field.
When you complete an internship, you receive a unique certificate that attests to the successful completion of all courses. There are currently 310 internships on Coursera, and the most popular and successful of them is the Data Science Internship – a series of courses developed and taught by Johns Hopkins University .
Professional Certificate
Coursera professional certificates are training programs that prepare you for specific jobs. Some programs will give you the foundation needed to pass certification exams in certain industries, providing you with the experience and skills you need to get started in your chosen career.
To earn a professional certificate, you’ll need to enroll in the specific program—and you may need to submit an application that requires approval. Once you receive it, you’ll need to pay for the program, complete all the courses, and meet certain requirements (such as an average score on exams).
Once you have completed all the program assignments, you will receive confirmation that you have successfully completed it, and you will be issued an official certificate from the institute that administers this specific training (not Coursera).
In terms of recognition of certificates, it depends on the certificate: some are recognized for further studies at other educational institutions, some are recognized only in industry and will give you the opportunity to work, and some are not. If you want to know if an institution accepts a specific Coursera professional certificate, you will have to check with the institution itself.
MasterTrack Certificate
In this program, you will receive practical projects and live expert guidance. The difference between the MasterTrack and the Master’s degree track is that in the MasterTrack, the classes are in a modular format.
This way, you can earn a practical certificate for less than the cost of a master’s degree. You will learn from real projects, interactive learning with your fellow students, and live training from experts in the field.
Some of the areas in which you can complete a MasterTrack certificate are civil engineering, digital marketing, and building design.
title
A Coursera degree is a degree for all intents and purposes, and all degrees come from world-renowned universities and colleges. A Coursera degree gives you the same official diploma that every other student at that university or college receives – but it allows you to study at your own pace. A Coursera degree is essentially a full-time student at that university or college – they simply do all their academic work from home. Most Coursera degrees are in the areas of computers and business administration.
Register for a course on Coursera
How exactly does registration work and what do you get when you register for the course?
Course information
Before you register, you are interested and want to know more about a particular course; clicking on the course name will take you to an information page where you will get all the relevant details about it. There you will find an overview of the course, the syllabus, registration options and more. I will go into all of these specifically in a moment, but if you want to see an example, it looks like this:
Overview
Here you will receive information about the course, what to expect and what is required of you in this course. It will usually include the course goals and objectives, as well as some recommendations from the course instructor on how you can get the most out of it.
Syllabus
The course syllabus will provide you with a summary of the course schedule, class structure, required reading, assignments, exams, etc. As with any other educational institution, this is an important document that you should keep and look at from time to time – it contains a lot of significant information about the course. It will help you know what will happen in the upcoming classes, and how to prepare for them.
Registration options
As I wrote before, in most Coursera courses you can choose between free registration and paid registration. Free registration is similar to what is called “free listening” in academia – you can view the course materials and lectures, but you cannot submit assignments, receive grades or feedback, and of course receive a course completion certificate.
After registering
Welcome, and good luck!
You have signed up for a Coursera course and received a notification that you have successfully registered and started the course. Now, you will have the opportunity to view all the course materials, as well as a link to a “Welcome and Good Luck” video from the instructor. In this video, they will tell you about their background in the field, and where they currently teach (physically). They will also usually tell you why they decided to build this course, and who it is primarily intended for.
Interactive transcript
Most of the lessons are video lessons, and they come with interactive transcripts. This means you can read every word the teacher says (very useful for those who struggle with fast spoken English), and even write notes for yourself with the customized tools that Coursera provides. You can read the text while watching the video, and also jump directly to any moment you want in the lecture – simply by clicking on the word in the transcript. It is important for me to note that the transcripts are easy to operate and read even on a smartphone.
Reading materials
Most courses have texts that are required reading. You will receive each such text the week it is discussed in class, and it will also be made clear to you whether it is required reading before class. This will usually be the case, and you will need to read and mark the reading as “objective completed” – because the material in the text will form the essence of the next class.
Assignments
Assignments in Coursera courses can be written assignments, online tests, and more. This depends on the course and its content, of course. Again, as a student in the course, you must complete the assignments and mark them as completed; most of them contain material that will prepare you for the next lesson in the course. But it’s important to know that most Coursera courses will provide you with a personal deadline, which is directly related to the time you started the course. Plus, if you miss the deadline, your grade won’t drop (nice, right?) – so you can really learn at your own pace.
Graded exams and assignments for peer review
You will have to deal with such tests and assignments mainly in specialization courses. The tests are automatically graded (they have “multiple choice” questions, or what we call in Israel an “American test”), but the assignments you submit are graded by real people – the students who are studying with you in the course. For this reason, you will receive your test scores as soon as you finish them, but you will only receive a grade for your assignment after three days.
If you submit work that is set to be “peer-reviewed,” all students in the course will have access to read it. Three days later, you will receive feedback from the other students in the course. In turn, you will also need to read and provide feedback on the work of your fellow course members – and if you don’t do it on time, it may deduct points from your grade.
How does it work technically? Each peer gives a grade to each specific section of your submitted work; the median grade you receive for each section will be your final grade for that section. The average grade for all sections of the work will then be calculated – not until you have finished giving feedback on your peers’ work.
Progress bar
Your progress is displayed on a timeline, giving you a macro view of your situation in the course – what’s ahead of you and what’s behind you. Of course, this is very important and effective, to prepare for the next lessons and do your assignments in the best possible way.
Each Coursera course you’re enrolled in will show you its own progress bar. You’ll see it on the course homepage, along with the course’s list of assignments, which are organized by week.
What are the benefits of Coursera ?
price
Of course, no educational institution can provide you with training or studies of this level, at Coursera’s prices. The fact that Coursera has more than 40 million (!) students worldwide allows them to provide excellent courses, which come from the best educational institutions in the world – at prices that are affordable for every pocket. This is amazing by any standard, because it allows people all over the world to learn, even if their income is very low, and on top of that – the seven-day free trial ensures that you won’t spend money on a course and then discover that it’s not for you.
comfort
The convenience and flexibility of studying at your own pace is ideal for people who are pressed for time. Plus, Coursera has a great mobile app, so you can do a lot of your studying via your smartphone – on the train, during breaks at work, or while waiting for your turn at the car wash 🙂
Another thing about this is the deadlines – they are long and easy to meet. You will usually be given weeks to complete each test, and even if you don’t pass – you will not lose points from your grade. This allows you to choose where and when you study, and organize your studies on Coursera around your personal life.
And last but not least – everyone can! To take a course on Coursera, you don’t need any previous education, high grades, or specific certificates. Anyone can take a course on a topic that interests them and start from high school!
quality
We’ll come back to this point again, because it’s one of the most important: Many of the courses on Coursera are written and managed by some of the world’s best educational institutions, and taught by their most successful instructors. These courses are also delivered through a variety of media, using a variety of teaching techniques, making them accessible to a wider range of students. Coursera also encourages students to share knowledge and ideas with others through the platform, helping them develop lifelong learning skills with easy access to global databases.
One last thing about quality – the structure and length of the courses. Because they are usually short and talk about a specific topic, Coursera teachers have to filter the knowledge they convey in the course, and talk about the main thing and not the bland; when you listen to a teacher in a Coursera course, you will feel the difference – they are truly some of the best teachers in the world.
challenge
The coursework is challenging enough to encourage students to study hard, but not too hard to exhaust and frustrate. What’s more, everything is done at your own pace – which means you also control the level of challenge.
Learning speed
Online learning encourages active learning, and online students can grasp the concepts discussed in the course more quickly than people who study in a conventional way. In fact, studies show that people can remember much more information through active learning (such as completing assignments or participating in group discussions) than from listening to lectures. This also helps them remember the material better.
In online learning, lectures are also more effective – because students can absorb the material better if they are given a task that concerns them in advance.
For these reasons, Coursera’s courses are suitable for a wide range of people; combining short lectures with assignments and exams creates very effective learning, and it’s no surprise that this is the case – Coursera chooses this method because it is scientifically proven.
Another important thing to say: watching a lecture twice, something that is not possible for someone who learns conventionally, can be extremely meaningful. Many students can complete assignments, participate actively, and generally understand the material, if they are given this opportunity.
Making connections
Coursera courses give you a great opportunity to network with professionals in your field. What’s more, they promote and improve cross-cultural relationships, which is known to be very important in today’s business world. A Coursera course could be your first step towards successful international collaboration.
Disadvantages of Coursera
Learning on Coursera is not suitable for people who like and prefer a regular classroom learning environment. It is certainly impossible to create successful human dialogue when your course has about 150,000 students enrolled.
Yes, there are digital alternatives like forums, bulletin boards, and chat rooms – but it’s hard to anticipate the personal relationships that might be forged when meeting other students face-to-face a few times a week. It may be disappointing at times, but you can’t create a deep conversation about topics like you can in a small group.
Another, fairly obvious, drawback is that Coursera courses (apart from degrees) are not recognized by academic institutions. But does that mean they’re a waste of time?
No! And why?
Because they are recognized in many workplaces, and more than that – they give you practical experience that you can present in job interviews or any other future situation.
In conclusion: Why do I recommend Coursera ?
First of all, I really hope that the review I have given you here can help you decide if Coursera is the right learning platform for you. I have tried to write as much detail as possible, from all the experience I have with Coursera (years!), to answer as many potential questions as possible.
So I recommend Coursera because there are a lot of courses on a variety of topics, and the courses are really well structured. Of course, with such a large number of courses, there are also some that are not as good, or that are simply not a good fit for you… But in any important topic that can help you advance your career, you can find great courses on Coursera, both at the most basic levels and in advanced specializations.
And finally: I recommend Coursera because their prices are unbeatable. It’s amazing to me how many doors this site has opened, for so many people from different parts of the world, who can now study in depth to the level of expertise in any field, and all of this at prices that don’t put you in debt for years.
And that’s it! I’ve finished explaining everything I could think of. Want to try it? Click here to try a course on Coursera today!
And a hot recommendation: check out this course , which is currently offered for free.
Want to check out other learning platforms? Here are the three biggest ones (aside from Coursera, of course):
- Skillshare
- Udemy
- Masterclass
Additional course recommendations on Coursera
To make your choice easier, here are some additional recommendations for courses on Coursera that may interest you:
- Artificial Intelligence Course: This course offers an in-depth introduction to the field of artificial intelligence, including algorithms, machine learning, and neural networks.
- Digital Marketing Course: This course covers everything you need to know about digital marketing, including SEO, paid advertising, and social media marketing.
- Project Management Course: This course offers tools and methods for managing projects effectively, including methodologies such as Agile and Scrum.
- Data Science Course: This course offers practical training in data science, including data analysis, visualization, and machine learning.
- App Development Course: This course covers everything you need to know about app development, including app development for Android and iOS.
I recommend checking out these courses, because they offer practical knowledge that can upgrade your career.
summary
In conclusion, Coursera is an excellent learning platform that offers a wide range of courses in different fields. With easy access, affordable prices, and recognized certificates, it is definitely worth checking out. I recommend you try a course or two and see how it suits you.
Good luck with your studies!
