Is Coursera Any Good? World-Class Learning For Anyone, Anywhere?

What Is Coursera?

Coursera is an online education platform full of Free and Paid courses to help you build your skills, get certificates, and more or new training from world-class universities and companies.

You will ONLY get top-notch expert instructors from top universities across the world so you can have confidence and certainty you will get the best information and help possible, plus…

All of these courses are delivered online with a combination of text, video, quizzes, and downloads to all test your knowledge.

Let’s dive deeper now.

Going Inside Coursera

Before I reveal to you the Course catalog how about we clarify Courser’s goals first?

• Learn the latest skills
• Get ready for a career
• Earn a certificate or degree
• Upskill your organization

Coursera’s Learning Outcomes

As seen above, 97% of people learning for professional development report career benefits like:

• Getting a promotion
• A raise or
• Starting a new career

World Class Learning From Anywhere

The image above is an example of how a course will be laid out when you enroll with the Lessons on the left, a video in the middle with the expert instructor, and then a transcript underneath just in case you want to read or are of hearing impaired.

Ease Of Accessibility

You can choose from many options including FREE courses and university degrees at a breakthrough price and you can learn at your own pace, 100% online.

• You get 3,900+ Courses and specializations to choose from
• 13+ Professional Certificates
• 20+ Degrees and Mastertrack certificates

Applied Learning

Would you like to master skills with in-depth training?

Like I mentioned earlier with quizzes, you can apply what you learned with self-paced quizzes and hands-on projects and get feedback from a global community of learners.

Shareable Certificates

You can earn Industry-recognized credentials and share this with your network.

Coursera Courses

This is the moment you’ve been patiently waiting for I’m sure, the Coursera Courses(and they don’t disappoint!)

On the home page you will see a button tab that reads “Explore”, and if you hove over it, you will get a drop-down of subjects you can explore. Or you can go to the search bar and type in what you want to learn, but for this example, I’ll show you the drop-down...

You get:

• Arts and Humanities
• Business
• Computer Science
• Data Science
• Information and technology
• Health
• Math and Logic
• Personal Development
• Physical Science and engineering
• Social Sciences
• Language Learning
• Degrees
• Certificates

For example, We’ll check out Business and by the way, if you’re interested in taking your business resume to the next level by doing Online Business and starting your own highly profitable one without having to:

• Own a product
• Fulfill customer support
• Be “techy”
• Have experience

Then check out my #1 Recommendation here to build yourself a long-term business that brings money in while you’re sleeping(no joke).

Hover over “business” and you’ll get sub-categories like:

• Short guided projects in business
• Leadership and management
• Finance 
• Marketing 
• Entrepreneurship
• Business Essentials
• Business Strategy
• View All Business

Let’s check out “Marketing”, since that’s an industry I’m in and can give you the ability to work from home or anywhere in the world and make really good money Like I’m doing.

Scroll down and you can find the courses to earn your degree and a few other sections:

• Earn Your Degree

• Most popular certificates in Marketing

• Most popular Marketing courses

• Top-Rated Marketing Courses

• Recently Launched Guided Projects

• Digital Marketing

• Learn from digital marketing experts

• Sales Mastery

• Create value with customer analytics

And so much more!

I’m in the area of Digital Marketing and out of ALL the other courses and certifications you could learn and earn, this has truly been the most rewarding, and here’s why….

We’re living in unprecedented times, the economy is changing rapidly down and then up again, businesses going out, people losing their jobs, and I’m sure you’re aware of that, right?

This could be the very well reason why you’re here but to put things in perspective, you need to take action, but the right one…

The one that doesn’t just give you more “Free knowledge” because you know you can do that on your own time as a hobby, right?

Rather why not put your time and energy into learning how to build a Digital Asset that will give you more money than you could have imagined, more FREEDOM, and to live life on your own terms however you choose to(HINT: no boss).

By the way, I’ve gone to school for 3+ years, have A LOT of certifications and while I was working at 9-5 at the time, I was also wondering what my next move would be more school? More certificates? A trade?

Good thing I found digital marketing...

Going Inside the back office.

I’ll show you parts of my back office inside one of my accounts I made for this purpose.

 added the Strategy of Content Marketing, and you can click on the blue “Go to course” section

And once you click it, here's the second page:

On the left you get:

• Course overview
• Grades
• Notes
• Discussion Forms
• Messages
• Course Info

Yours may look a little different, you may be asked to answer a few questions like “why you’re taking the course” and so forth - just as a survey for them to gather data about their users.

Under week 1 you can see your instructor notes

And then the weeks underneath with approximated finish times, quizzes, and more.

This is a similar format you’ll see when you start watching a lesson. After you’re done you’ll get a simple quiz question(or more) to test your knowledge and what you just learned.

Then you could click on “Next” at the top right to proceed

Inversely, you can go back too. OH, and you don’t have to complete a quiz all the time to move next, but do it! It’s for your own good.

Coursera Free Online Courses Certificates

In your back office, if you scroll down to like the middle you will see a section(or related section) on free courses you can take:

Mine may look different than yours, but from here you can check out the free online courses but as far as certificates go, it’s best to get the paid version of the course.

What Other People Are Saying About Coursera(Courerra Reviews)

How Much Does Coursera Cost?

Coursera has a very dynamic cost structure since it’s a subscription site with loads of Free and paid individual courses, so here’s the breakdown:

• FREE Courses to audit(over 1,150)
• Certificates vary on the type, of course, you’re taking
• Specializations run on a subscription base between $37-$79 per month
• 7-day free trial for specific courses - cancel before your trial is over and you won’t be billed
• Individual courses offer a premium version from $29 to $100
• Coursera Plus is $399 per year with unlimited access to over 3,000+ courses specializations, and professional certificates. You are eligible for a full money-back refund if you request it within 14 days of your purchase.
• Full Coursera degrees can cost you between $15,000 to over $40,000 and even if that sounds like a lot, it’s only a fraction of what you would pay for an on-campus degree.
• Business Plans - At $400 per year(for each employee) you’ll get access to over 3,800 courses, mobile apps, certificates upon completion, and graded assignments, quizzes, and projects. 
• Coursera business enterprise plan - Mean for larger organizations and there is no set price, you'll need to request a quote from them(it won’t be cheap!)

Coursera Payment Types

You can use credit or PayPal to purchase your Coursera subscription or courses, and the available credit cards are:

• Visa
• MasterCard
• Discover
• JCB 
• AMEX

Who Is Coursera For?

Coursera was designed for people who want to advance in their career paths, hobbies, interests, and passions by taking top-quality courses from accredited universities and experts from all across the world.

Here’s more:

• For people who want to gain more skills for a change in career path 
• 9-5 workers who want an alternative path to making money through things like their hobbies, passions, interests...hence digital marketing.
• Students who want to either sharpen their skills before and after college or are looking for an alternative route than the traditional go to college routine.
• Moms and dads who want to challenge themselves and start on their path to a lucrative new career or business.
• And many more!

Pros And Cons

Pros:

• World-class learning for anyone so you can never run out of something new to learn and advance in which means you’re going to be excited to show up every day to learn and take action
• Master skills with in-depth training at your own pace so you can have full control over how you learn and what you consume which means you’re going to block out what doesn’t matter and let what does - keeping your mind in an equal balance.
• Earn-industry recognized credentials so you can have peak achievement you can share with your friends and family which means you’ll get more praise and feel more valued from those around you.
• 60+ MILLION people are already learning with Coursera so you can be assured there is a large community of like-minded individuals after the same goals as you are which means you will be able to contribute more, collaborate, and feel happier moving forward because of this.
• Learn the latest skills in ANY category so you don’t have to worry about it being outdated which means you’ll have ONLY the most current work and be able to turn that knowledge into the right actions.
• Get ready for a NEW career so you can make more money, save yourself more of your valuable time and avoid all the effort of having to go to college which means you’ll get through much faster and effectively

Cons:

• Many pricing options can be a little confusing and having all these different trials means you just have to be on top of it more.
• Some lessons are taught by professors that are just “professors” and not people who’ve practiced what they preach like they haven’t actually worked in that field but teach it. This can be a case in business but for the most part, you get a mix of it.

Alternatives

Just in case Coursera is “not your cup of tea” or you would like to explore before starting, here are a few close alternatives:

• GitHub
• Khan Academy
• Udemy
• edX
• Udacity
• SoloLearn
• Lynda
• Code School
• SkillShare
• FutureLearn

These are all good alternatives I believe you will find to like. You can start with Coursera, and always explore what the other platforms have to offer, for example…

Let’s say you wanted to learn about health and wellness on Coursera, now you can compare that to one on let's say Udemy, and find which one is best for you.

What I Liked Most About Coursera

There’s so much to like about Coursera, it’s nearly impossible to just say one thing, so here goes a few:

• Over 3,000 courses so you don’t get bored and you can find what you’re searching for
• You get to learn from leading universities and companies 
• You get to choose from flexible options like free courses to universities degrees ALL online
• Master skills at a deep level with assessments, quizzes, and projects.
• Earn industry-recognized credentials
• Get ready for a new career in no time
• Organized lesson structures

What I Didn’t Like About Coursera

There’s nothing really to say here other than the fact that you don’t get all the courses for free...you get what you pay for, right?

Final Thoughts And Next Level Step

What was your favorite part about Coursera? And what was your key takeaway?

Coursera is a very good high-quality learning platform with LOADS of courses(over 3,000) for you to choose from in ANY category imaginable so you can choose the right classes for your needs and be able to harness the skills you need for your new career or hobby.

Whatever your goals and outcomes are in your future, you can depend on Coursera to help you gain the latest skills, get ready for a new career, earn a certificate or degree, and upskill your organization so you can finally live your life the way you want...

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