Udemy went IPO last week, and PitchBook just published a note on the category, so I thought to write about my positive experiences with Coursera. Online learning is segmented by subject, level, and quality of instruction. See the research note for a complete rundown.
The edtech boom has not waned now that most schools and universities are again meeting in person.
Coursera is oriented toward college credit and professional certification. My instructor for neural nets, Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng, is a professor at Stanford. They offer online degree programs in conjunction with major universities. For example, you can earn a Master’s in Data Science through CU Boulder.
I was intrigued by that, but … I have a specific business problem to solve, and I already have grad-level coursework in statistics. It doesn’t make sense for me to sit through STAT 561 again. For me, the “all you can eat” plan is a better value at $50 per month.
What I need, today, is to move this code off my laptop and into the cloud. For that, I can take the cloud deployment class. If I run into problems with data wrangling, there’s a class for that, too. This reminds me of that scene in The Matrix, where Trinity learns to fly a helicopter.
People can gain the skills they need, as and when they need them – not as fast as Trinity, but fast enough to keep up with evolving needs on the job. I think this is the future of education, and 37 million students agree with me.
Virag Consulting 