Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coursera is phasing out free certificates

courserajunkie.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 135 posts

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#91

Post by andyidsinga »

pjmlp wrote: post #69
andyidsinga wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this! Once someone learns something -- they can put it into practice (or not if they were just learning for fun). It makes sense that in the future, rather than a certificate, examples of putting learning into practice would become more important. It is certainly easy to show proof of practice already with smartphones, cheaper computers and great publishing tools. portfolio trumps certificate :)

> portfolio trumps certificate :) Not on my home country. If you don't have the certificate good luck going through HR.

good point. I've also lived in non-US countries and saw that.

So question for you is - in your country is the need for the certificate increasing or decreasing?

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#92

Post by rhc2104 »

alexashka wrote: post #51

Well that's what happens when you are trying to do charity AND make money - it doesn't make sense. Either it is free, or it is for profit. You have to choose which. Khan Academy is free. MIT Courses on youtube are free. These websites that want you to sign up, only be able to view courses at certain times, etc etc. Please, just give me youtube links and pdf/slides and have a forum for discussion. This is not hard, yo…

edX is a nonprofit, and they also charge for certificates.

https://www.edx.org/verified-certificate

There are labor costs involved in grading assignments and "making sure that you're the one taking the class".

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#93

Post by lambdaelite »

lukaslalinsky wrote: post #83
wolfgke wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the certificate certifies that you indeed invested time to upgrade your education on your own to the employer.

Did an employer ever ask you to show them your university degree after you mentioned that you attended an university on your resume? I'm asking because it never happened to me and I don't think it's a common practice. Just mentioning that you have done some online courses on your resume and being able to talk about them seems enough to me. If the course is relevant to the job you are applying to, I expect the intervi…

It's common in regulated industries. In medicine for example, during the credentialing process you have to have your transcripts, degrees, etc. sent in from the original institution.

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#94

Post by andyidsinga »

wolfgke wrote: post #84
nitrogen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternate answer: "The increasingly difficult and diverse projects I have completed drew on all of the new knowledge I was gaining, and speak for themselves."

The personnel manager (again: they usually have few knowledge about the topic) is usually not able to assess whether these projects were really difficult or just smoke and mirrors. On the other hand, checking the certificates is easy...

is the "personel manager" you describe really the state of hiring? As a company it seems you would miss a lot of talent by filtering this way.

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#96

Post by pjmlp »

andyidsinga wrote: post #91
pjmlp wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> portfolio trumps certificate :) Not on my home country. If you don't have the certificate good luck going through HR.

good point. I've also lived in non-US countries and saw that. So question for you is - in your country is the need for the certificate increasing or decreasing?

Increasing, it doesn't make sense to decrease, given our society.

As I said, without papers certifying the knowledge one has, the application will just be tossed into the garbage can.

The only way to workaround that, like every southern country in Europe, is if you know someone that knows someone....

Also for any IT related job, applicants are expected to have at least a 3 year duration degree, with preference given to those with a 5 year duration one.

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#97

Post by minthd »

kiloreux wrote: post #56
Sven7 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did learning new things change your life?

Although that it's not important how MOOCs changed my life , but i will tell you how , i was raised in a poor family (like really poor) , i got my first computer when i was 16 years old , and saw the internet for the first time when i was 18 years old , i always had hunger for knowledge and learning new things but never could go further than reading some old books from the high school library , when i first got the i…

First, congratulations!.

Second, while MOOCs are MOOCs are great, they don't fit every type of person.Are people in your country organizing to give the support needed to make MOOC a good fit for everyone ?

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#98

Post by dpmehta02 »

kiloreux wrote: post #56
Sven7 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did learning new things change your life?

Although that it's not important how MOOCs changed my life , but i will tell you how , i was raised in a poor family (like really poor) , i got my first computer when i was 16 years old , and saw the internet for the first time when i was 18 years old , i always had hunger for knowledge and learning new things but never could go further than reading some old books from the high school library , when i first got the i…

Great story.

My first MOOC was also David Malan's CS50x on edX; what an incredible teacher! He brings such a unique enthusiasm and joy to the study of Computer Science. In case you're reading this, thank you Professor Malan!

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#99

Post by bphogan »

wolfgke wrote: post #84
nitrogen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternate answer: "The increasingly difficult and diverse projects I have completed drew on all of the new knowledge I was gaining, and speak for themselves."

The personnel manager (again: they usually have few knowledge about the topic) is usually not able to assess whether these projects were really difficult or just smoke and mirrors. On the other hand, checking the certificates is easy...

And this is what's wrong with employment, and why so many unqualified people get in.

Look, I say this as a teacher who offers degree classes, and as a student earning a certificate that says I can teach...

You can earn certificates without learning a damn thing.

Re: Coursera is phasing out free certificates

#100

Post by wolfgke »

andyidsinga wrote: post #94
wolfgke wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The personnel manager (again: they usually have few knowledge about the topic) is usually not able to assess whether these projects were really difficult or just smoke and mirrors. On the other hand, checking the certificates is easy...

is the "personel manager" you describe really the state of hiring? As a company it seems you would miss a lot of talent by filtering this way.

First: This kind of personal manager a hate object in German programming and engineering circles in about the same way the pointy-haired boss does in US ones.

I openly can't answer this question for reasons that are off topic here. But I have good reasons to believe that the stories are often true: If you just look at job advertisements you'll very often see very contradictory job requirements that by simple logic and knowledge of, say, programming can hardly be satisfied and simply make no sense for the job. No, say, programmer with the faintest knowledge about his job would write such a job advertisement. On the other hand, if you know the typical hire process, where often the personal manager has a say...

Post reply on HN