MIT OCW is now what I rely on via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mitocw/courses
https://videolectures.net/ also has a great archive.
Coursera’s Preview Mode
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: Coursera’s Preview Mode
#22> MOOCs never achieved the transformative potential promised during the early hype.
I don't get this gloom and doom about MOOCs.
A substantial amount of people have transformed their lives by learning from MOOCs. I am one of them.
It’s not the usual suspects like, "people don't have self-discipline", "one learns much more in university", etc. that have limited the perceived influence of MOOCs. It is pure credentialism that is behind MOOCs not reaching their full potential.
Everyone is all about skills untill the hiring time comes. Now companies want the students of the best colleges, the best degrees, etc. Students with proper skills might not even get through the door without the proper degree.
I did projects with skills that I learned via MOOCs, I answered questions in interviews with the knowledge that I started getting from MOOCs. But it was my Master’s in CS which ultimately mattered in my getting interviews. In that degree, they still teach GOFAI, "soft computig", and fuzzy set theory, "expert systems", and more things from the 80s.
MOOCs matter, MOOCs are loved and studied by a serious set of students and professionals. But they still can't get you interviews for most roles in most companies. In frontier AI labs, they are now basically treating PhDs as the minimum qualification for most roles.
MOOCs + projects + self-directed learning, even if you are very good, offers you little in terms of career opportunities. That's why they have not been apparently "transformative".
I know the arguments about making hiring easier for companies, etc.
Re: Coursera’s Preview Mode
#23MOOCs have always given value to a certain group (about 3% of people who are motivated to self learn) and are basically useless for everyone else. Which is why they are primarily virtue signaling devices to fluff your LinkedIn.
When I started learning to code for data science I appreciated the lectures and examples. Once you reach a certain technical level these MOOCs aren't really helpful though.
Re: Coursera’s Preview Mode
#24> MOOCs never achieved the transformative potential promised during the early hype. I would disagree, I saw a lot of people, especially in the Data Science field that got up-skilled by back then free Coursera.
Alternate theory, MOOCs got lectures put onto YouTube.
And this is what the early success really was.
It'd be interesting to see if what they "up-skilled" on is now common knowledge in Data Science.
Re: Coursera’s Preview Mode
#25> MOOCs never achieved the transformative potential promised during the early hype. I don't get this gloom and doom about MOOCs. A substantial amount of people have transformed their lives by learning from MOOCs. I am one of them. It’s not the usual suspects like, "people don't have self-discipline", "one learns much more in university", etc. that have limited the perceived influence of MOOCs. It is pure credentialis…
Yeah its infuriating to see free high quality education blamed over shitty corporate recruiting and assessment practices. If companies (particularly outside tech) did anything at all to improve hiring practices and actually evaluate skills objectively, Coursera would be very valuable. Even if this didn't happen, it was a great learning platform. Now that Coursera has replaced their CEO with an Amazon hire, it's dead now. Late-stage capitalism claims another victim.
Re: Coursera’s Preview Mode
#26Re: Coursera’s Preview Mode
#27Never took off because employees care zero that you took a Coursera class. Might as well watch YouTube videos or take local community college classes.
You're right that employers don't care that you take a coursera course in the same way they don't care you watched a YouTube video.
But in both cases, if you learn something from that course or video, and then go off and create something based on that, that something can be something employers care about.
Re: Coursera’s Preview Mode
#28> MOOCs never achieved the transformative potential promised during the early hype. I don't get this gloom and doom about MOOCs. A substantial amount of people have transformed their lives by learning from MOOCs. I am one of them. It’s not the usual suspects like, "people don't have self-discipline", "one learns much more in university", etc. that have limited the perceived influence of MOOCs. It is pure credentialis…
MOOC was a fancy academic term for lots of videos, often long, maybe interspersed with questions.
Starting was fun, finishing was another thing. Credentialing another.
They helped get a lot of content out in the open.
The sharing of knowledge is great and should continue, hopefully with more modern digital interactions of 2025.
Re: Coursera’s Preview Mode
#29> MOOCs never achieved the transformative potential promised during the early hype. I don't get this gloom and doom about MOOCs. A substantial amount of people have transformed their lives by learning from MOOCs. I am one of them. It’s not the usual suspects like, "people don't have self-discipline", "one learns much more in university", etc. that have limited the perceived influence of MOOCs. It is pure credentialis…
> Everyone is all about skills untill the hiring time comes. Now companies want the students of the best colleges, the best degrees, etc. Students with proper skills might not even get through the door without the proper degree.
What hiring companies want is to get good employees who can do the job they are supposed to do, and they want to have as low a false positive rate as possible (hiring someone who can't do the job is very expensive).
I am not a hiring expert, but they probably get a lower false positive rate looking at school and credentials than any skill test they give.
Companies don't really care about false negative rates (not hiring a person who would do the job well) as long as they are still able to hire someone else who can't also do the job well. It sucks for the person who isn't hired, but not for the company.
Re: Coursera’s Preview Mode
#30> MOOCs never achieved the transformative potential promised during the early hype. I don't get this gloom and doom about MOOCs. A substantial amount of people have transformed their lives by learning from MOOCs. I am one of them. It’s not the usual suspects like, "people don't have self-discipline", "one learns much more in university", etc. that have limited the perceived influence of MOOCs. It is pure credentialis…
> MOOCs + projects + self-directed learning, even if you are very good, offers you little in terms of career opportunities. That's why they have not been apparently "transformative".
I remember on one of the first of these courses (AI in Berkley?), people were incensed that they would not get an official degree/certificate from the university.
Some were really mad, as if they had been defrauded or something.
Your point about certification is accurate, but I want to add another nuance.
Even if you manage to get a degree from a "good"/prestigious place, if you are "the wrong kind of person" that will only be held against you.
It's like succeeding at that is a violation of natural law and you need to be punished for the violation. It's almost religious and deeply guttural.
Of course that in places like the states, those people usually don't even get the change to graduate from those places since some excuse will be concocted during the application process.
MOOCs suffer from the online version of that.
However in places where admission is "blind" and the cost free or low this is very common.