[HN Gopher] Coursera S-1 IPO
___________________________________________________________________
Coursera S-1 IPO
Author : marc__1
Score : 313 points
Date : 2021-03-05 21:37 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sec.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sec.gov)
| [deleted]
| purple_ferret wrote:
| I used coursera and edx back when they first came out. Can't say
| I'm surprised that I can no longer find Jeffrey Ullman's Automata
| coursera but it is on Edx.
|
| Coursera's layout seems intentionally convoluted and anxiety
| inducing to me. Seems geared to guide you to a Certificate rather
| than any one good course that might meet your interest.
| bor100003 wrote:
| I have the same feeling about the UI. The last time I tried
| watching a course was easier to find the videos on youtube(the
| author had uploaded them there as well).
| villgax wrote:
| Does Coursera even hire people having their certifications?
| f6v wrote:
| The certifications are definitely worthless, as the exams
| aren't proctored.
| sgpl wrote:
| I've really enjoyed taking courses on Coursera, some paid, but
| I've mostly audited stuff I've found interesting. Really hoping
| that they're able to find a way towards profitability and exist
| as a public company in the long run. Looking at the numbers it
| doesn't seem like it'll be that hard.
|
| They definitely seemed to have benefitted from covid in terms of
| registered users which isn't a huge surprise. Registered users
| from 2019 to 2020 grew by 67%, averaging around 23-24% for the
| few prior years.
|
| Revenue jumps at a similar rate from 2019 to 2020, from about
| $184m to 293m, 59% growth.
|
| 11,900 degree students at the end of 2020, with degree segment
| revenue doubling from $15m in 2019 to $30m in 2020.
|
| Some stats from the filing: year users
| revenue 2020 - 77m users / $293m 2019 - 46m users
| / $184m 2018 - 37m users / $141m 2017 - 30m users
| / $95m
|
| 25+ degrees offered in the price range: $9k to $45k
| fny wrote:
| The jump from 2019 to 2020 is enormous compared to their
| typical growth rate of around 20%. It'll be exciting to see if
| they can sustain that post COVID.
| vmception wrote:
| IPO Fridays are back! Except it's everyday
| awaythro15234 wrote:
| Anyone know how different Coursera is from Udemy?
|
| I recently took a course on Flutter from Udemy and was pretty
| disappointed. Not with the platform per se, but with the entire
| _idea_ of video courses on programmatic concepts. I only took it
| because for Flutter most of the resources are videos, and not
| books or articles.
|
| I find that video courses do not invite the same level of
| interactivity I feel when I learn from, say, a textbook. There
| are also of course a horrible reference as one has to dig in to
| find a specific video, then find the time within that video to
| learn a concept, while with a book I can merely do a text search.
|
| Videos also are frustrating in the fact that one cannot fluidly
| control the pace. One can pause and resume and increase from 1x
| to 2x and back again, sure, but with text I can merely... stop
| reading to code something up and then when I am ready to proceed
| I can... resume reading. I hate fiddling with a mouse or a
| keyboard to pause/resume/pause/resume/rewind, etc.
|
| Needless to say I will not be taking a video course for anything
| programming related again.
| ncfausti wrote:
| There really is no comparison. Udemy is youtube tutorials that
| you pay for, while coursera are modified versions of actual
| college/graduate courses from the best universities in the
| world, and they're free.
|
| Just took Intro to Mathematical Thinking from Stanford on
| coursera, it was fantastic.
| carlosf wrote:
| Some Udemy courses are pretty good and are taught by
| practicioners, while Coursera is much closer to what you get
| in University.
|
| Coursera -> Helped me to graduate
|
| Udemy -> Helped me to get useful skills quicker and make
| money
| ncfausti wrote:
| Good to know. Any you would highly recommend?
| firstfewshells wrote:
| React course offered by Stephen Grider and data science
| course offered by Jose Portilla on Udemy are good.
|
| Generally, looking at the number of students enrolled and
| the rating of a course gives a good idea on quality.
| segmondy wrote:
| I hate videos too, but they are useful. If you're taking a
| course that's GUI heavy it pays off. First time I decide to
| learn iOS programming, it was great. Figuring out the exactly
| 10 locations I have to click and in which order is faster with
| video than any other way. So it depends exactly on what you're
| trying to achieve. Before acloud guru had it's site, they were
| on udemy. It was great for getting my AWS cert back then, I
| just watched the videos and didn't have to wade around AWS
| console to find out where things are. So for tech stuff, it's
| really useful if what you're learning is more GUI heavy than
| CLI heavy.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, it depends. I've taken some LinkedIn (formerly Lynda)
| courses on video editing and the like and it works far better
| than text with photos would. But video for something that
| could simply be explained with some bullet points is awful.
| puddingnomeat wrote:
| I also used to be very excited about online courses until I
| experienced them as superficial when compared to books and
| self-checks. I think the best way to learn some things ends up
| being experiential, so something more like an apprenticeship
| than a lecture would be the most efficient. But in reality, it
| seems hard to find that.
|
| You also find the same in, for example, college. Where a tutor
| may be able to get you up to speed faster by 'debugging' your
| learning.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| While I agree, I find I learn best by watching _then_ doing.
| grumple wrote:
| Coursera is significantly better in my experience with their
| deep learning specialization. Lots of good jupyter notebook
| work and quizzes.
| higerordermap wrote:
| Took an algorithms related course. Video lectures are there.
| But practice using Quiz & auto grader for evaluating programs
| was pretty good. IIRC there will be transcripts but check with
| the particular course.
| bordercases wrote:
| Coursera - taught by some of the world's best professors on
| cutting edge topics.
|
| Udemy - professionals looking to make money outside of their
| day job by teaching, with varying levels of competency at
| either their profession or the ability to teach.
|
| You'll get more "practical" or "current" topics out of Udemy,
| but better education out of Coursera.
|
| Coursera is very bad at keeping their courses live though.
| Udemy is much better at this.
| cambalache wrote:
| > Coursera - taught by some of the world's best professors on
| cutting edge topics.
|
| I would say the distribution is way wider. Yes, there are top
| courses by top universities but those are sadly a minority.
| There are lots upon lots of mediocre courses either by big or
| small universities and the worst offenders the programs
| created by vendors (Google, IBM, etc) which are nothing but a
| barely disguised way to push their platforms. Going directly
| to the university site and you will find the real deal, last
| term course which usually will be significantly better.
| bordercases wrote:
| Nothing to disagree with here. Come to think of it I hope
| COVID puts more recorded lecture online from Ivy League et
| al, overall. The only issue is that it's easy to put them
| behind paywall or student logins or what have you.
|
| One bonus with the Google/Facebook/whatever approach is
| that you sometimes get academics who became in-house
| researchers to teach their courses. This was more common in
| the early days and pretty much what you get out of Udacity.
| It's true that they train to the platform but there really
| isn't another way to get e.g. Sebastian Thrun out there
| anymore. Another view may take that as a broken window,
| however.
| granzymes wrote:
| FY Ended December 31, in millions except percentage
| | 2019 | 2020 | YoY
| ---------------|--------|--------|------- revenue |
| $184 | $294 | 60% gross profit | $95 | $155 |
| 63% op ex | $143 | $221 | 55% net
| (loss) | $(47) | $(67) | (43)% (loss) ex SBC |
| $(31) | $(50) | (61)% free cash flow | $(31) | $(27)
| | 15% total users | 46 | 77 | 67%
| net retention | 106% | 114% | --
| f430 wrote:
| Price to earnings ratio is at an all time high, once the credit
| bubble bursts, so will the investors appetite for such
| companies.
| whitepaint wrote:
| You have absolutely no clue what will happen or when.
| f430 wrote:
| tell me. please why a company that loses 40 cents for every
| dollar they spend should have double digit multiples. you
| have 1 hour to reply with a fully cited explanation
| justifying this level of exuberance in a low yield credit
| bubble driving up valuations while overall the industry has
| seen a net reduction in profitability.
| lrx wrote:
| Literally saying no one knows.
| GCA10 wrote:
| Fast-growing young companies with big ambitions often
| overspend heavily on everything (marketing, r&d,
| operations) relative to their current size. Their bet is
| that as they grow, they will gain unique dominance in
| their field, plus deeper engagement from customers, which
| will translate into much higher revenue/user and the
| emergence of a very profitable business.
|
| This is a workable strategy! Examples include Amazon,
| Facebook, Workday, Snowflake and practically every
| biotech company. Some wait until they're profitable to go
| public; some don't. It's also a strategy that often
| fails. Lots of less famous examples are out there, too.
|
| It's interesting that Coursera's 2020 revenue per current
| learner is about $8. I ran the numbers on Stanford ($6
| billion budget; 17,000 enrolled students) and the revenue
| per learner is north of $300,000.
|
| Now Stanford sells a vastly different product than
| Coursera does. (At least right now.) And the bulk of
| Stanford's revenue comes via grants, investment income
| and other stuff including ticket sales. Tuition revenue
| per learner is far less, though still well into the tens
| of thousands of dollars per year.
|
| If you believe that over the next decade, the education
| dollar will be reallocated to the advantage of
| organizations like Coursera, the way to get rewarded for
| your prescience is to get in now and smile as you wait
| for the revenue/learner curve to bend your way.
|
| I'm not minimizing the risks. But if your analysis ends
| with "they're losing money right now," you're shrinking
| your horizons to a strange degree.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Snowflake would be a poster child for OPs argument. Not
| against it.
|
| We don't know what will happen with tech stocks like
| these over the next couple of years though as others have
| said.
| f430 wrote:
| Right here comes the ad hominem attacks. Year 2000
| called, P/E ratio is at dangerous levels. Not to mention
| frauds, crypto and somehow rolling a truck down a hill
| creates billion dollar companies over night meanwhile
| there is a liquidity crisis brewing in the bond market
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Did you reply to the wrong comment? Your comment has
| nothing to do with mine.
|
| If not. You are possibly seeing everything as if you're
| the victim or being attacked. My comment did not do any
| of that. At all.
| f430 wrote:
| yet bond yields go up a small basis point and nasdaq
| wipes out gains from this year. The current loss
| leadership model works because of cheap capital. That's
| it. There's nothing genius about it. SaaS stocks are
| heavily inflated and were hit particularly hard with the
| recent correction. Double points if they bought bitcoins.
|
| > tell me. please why a company that loses 40 cents for
| every dollar they spend should have double digit
| multiples. you have 1 hour to reply with a fully cited
| explanation justifying this level of exuberance in a low
| yield credit bubble driving up valuations while overall
| the industry has seen a net reduction in profitability.
|
| so I dissed a YC company going public and it gets
| flagged. The censorship here is ridiculous and this place
| has turned into a creepy brogrammer pump & dump.
| [deleted]
| dasudasu wrote:
| What do they spend all that op ex on?
| granzymes wrote:
| I didn't include the breakdown for the sake of brevity (and
| also because with only 3 categories it is quite nebulous) but
| here you go. In thousands, except percentage
| | 2019 | 2020 | YoY
| ---------------------------|---------|----------|-----
| research and development | $56,364 | $76,784 | 36%
| sales and marketing | $57,042 | $107,249 | 88%
| general and administrative | $29,810 | $37,215 | 25%
| CuriousNinja wrote:
| Wow, didn't expect them to spend so much money on
| marketing. Given that they are now registered as a public
| benefit corporation wouldn't this money be better spent as
| "scholarships" or something for their courses for students
| who can't afford the fees. I would assume that if they are
| actually providing a worthwhile public service, then word
| of mouth should bring in enough users rather than having to
| spend most of their opex on marketing.
| prepend wrote:
| Rent, marketing, affiliates, IP, etc
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I guess this is the time to make the big money. So much moola you
| can buy out your neighbors homes, and live like a king.
|
| The wealthy boys have so much money they don't know where it park
| it. Ten year interest rate is up, celebrities are now guru SPAC
| wizards, hedge fund guys are acting like immature teens in order
| to manipulate stocks on Reddit.
|
| Every time I've seen this exuberance; the Retail investor is left
| out to dry badly bloody, and completely broke.
|
| I sure hope Warren get's her rich boy tax passed. In my
| neighborhood the wealthy can't buy enough junk off Amazon, and at
| the same time complain over the number of homeless camps popping
| up.
| blockyhead wrote:
| Why does it end with the retail investor as a loser.
|
| For example the neighbors whose homes are being bought probably
| make good money.
|
| And if you are convinced it is a bad time for retail investors,
| don't invest.
|
| What alternative do you propose? Government regulations on what
| everybody is allowed to own? Granted, they could stop printing
| money.
| rohitb91 wrote:
| People have the money to take an exclusive trip around the moon
| but not help the homeless they step over on the way to the ship
|
| such is life
| EvilEy3 wrote:
| We live one life, some people have other priorities than you
| do.
| vallas wrote:
| The real value of education is what students do with it. I wish
| Coursera put all the content free for users and make a living on
| income share agreement based on a small part of users.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| That was the orogibampromise of udacity, coursers, edx, ...
| Then they all had to monetize
| duderoso wrote:
| The content is free. And you can "audit" any course you want.
| The only thing you pay for is the certificate.
| alexashka wrote:
| Or maybe they can die, burn in hell and let universities record
| their lectures with a phone and a 50$ microphone, upload them
| to youtube, post pdfs of slides, lecture notes, etc and be done
| with it?
|
| Coursera and other 'education' companies are mostly attempts to
| put themselves in-between government subsidized higher
| education and citizens who already fucking pay for higher
| education institutions through taxes.
|
| This company is pure scum, let's be honest about what it is.
| echelon wrote:
| You could apply your perspective to any industry and company.
|
| I think you should reframe what's being done here.
|
| Coursera sees an opportunity to make money by creating a
| market for affordable educational content. Universities do
| not feel compelled to offer their educations for free or at
| reduced costs, because that's how they sell their expensive
| services to students and wealthy families.
|
| You have many forces acting in a complex, multi-dimensional
| market. Don't assume evil. Different brains, different angles
| of attack. Lots of offenses, defenses, and interesting state
| space landscapes.
| [deleted]
| Ecstatify wrote:
| Coursera has pretty good content but I'm not sure their
| certifications lead to anything meaningful. I'm just using it to
| learn stuff so I don't really care about that aspect but I see so
| many people online cheating.
|
| Platform is pretty basic/poor. There's bugs months old in some of
| the courses that haven't been solved. I don't think there's much
| community/networking. They ask cringe questions at the end of a
| module to create discussions, very LinkedIn like "How will you
| use what you learned in the real world?"
|
| The mobile app and the web app are out of sync. I've completed
| the course on the web but on the mobile app it says I still have
| 4hrs to complete.
|
| I think all colleges will start to offer online degrees going
| forward. Lambda school seems to be taking off and it seems more
| like the future of education.
|
| I'm a customer but won't be an investor, nothing groundbreaking.
| Could easily be copied. They seriously need a better UX.
| Pluralsight & Datacamp UX is a lot better.
|
| Content : 7/10
|
| Platform : 4/10
| whoisjuan wrote:
| > Coursera has pretty good content but I'm not sure their
| certifications lead to anything meaningful.
|
| I agree with this. My cynical take when I see someone with a
| Coursera certification is "so what?"... Not in a mean way. I
| just simply don't see the value of that certification.
|
| But then I remember that the tech industry is not the same as
| other industries. There are other industries where there's
| still a strong cultural bias towards formalized and
| demonstrable education. So those certifications could indeed
| signal employers in other industries about competence in
| certain knowledge area. I strongly believe that those
| certifications don't prove anything but I guess there's some
| people that do believe in their value.
| woeirua wrote:
| This will probably be downvoted like crazy here, but I thought we
| were _against_ for-profit education?
|
| Pretty sure everyone was up in arms when University of Phoenix
| and the like were bilking students of tens of thousands in
| student loans and then dumping them on the street with worthless
| degrees (or worse incomplete degree programs).
|
| Sure the content of the Coursera programs may be better than
| anything you might have had access to with UoP, but the reality
| is that the degrees/certificates are just as useful right now as
| UoP's ever were. Until the rigor is there the degrees will
| continue to be worth nothing. Unfortunately, that means that
| Coursera's business model is probably fundamentally broken, as
| they have previously admitted that too many people drop out if
| the courses are too hard. Also, making the courses meaningful
| would certainly require hiring a lot of TAs to grade assignments,
| which would cost them a lot of money.
|
| I agree that online education definitely has a role to play in
| the future... But I'm really struggling to see why everyone
| agrees that one for-profit school is unequivocally bad, but the
| other gets a free pass.
| pfranz wrote:
| I 100% share your concerns. What you and I hate is the
| predatory, indenturing nature of for-profit colleges that don't
| provide marketable skills--what currently exists. The
| certificate from UoP, Coursera, or the receipt from a Ruby on
| Rails book all have the same market value when applying for a
| job, but I hope everyone here has bought and got value from a
| tech book.
|
| I honestly don't know what makes universities work. Their
| "mission" to educate in the US has definitely crept towards
| for-profit. Seeing endowments grow multiple times over but
| their student body stay the same size. Over the past few
| decades they've teased by publishing course materials online,
| but have usually been very protective. I can't imagine this not
| changing over the next few decades.
|
| Like you point out, entry level stuff scales really well. Maybe
| "graduate level" material costs a premium or its a loss-leader
| as a way add prestige? University undergrad often has "filter
| classes" which always seemed like a money grab because
| otherwise their admissions and onboarding departments aren't
| doing their job. Graduate classes were always much smaller and
| hard for people to afford.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Can't say I'm against for-profit education as long as there is
| a government funded affordable option.
| 3eto wrote:
| People underestimate the value of free.
|
| There are millions of kids and people of all ages going to
| extremes to access the internet to learn new stuff.
|
| I met a kid in a remote village who would cycle for miles every
| weekend they were not working to seat in a public library to
| learn on the internet, for that kid a course costing 1 penny
| would be too expensive and no one in the family had a credit
| card to begin with.
|
| Sal Khan deserves all the praise and more, Khan Academy is now
| in multiple languages, his videos are literally changing
| people's lives.
|
| MIT's edX used to be free, they are now monetising the courses
| and will withdraw access after their self imposed artificial
| course time has run out if you don't pay them, this also
| creates a second class of students, the ones with money get
| special privileges and get graded and the poor ones don't and
| offering 'financial aid' doesn't work if you really want to
| reach far and wide, how many will close the site when they see
| it costs thousands of dollars for a course? In a sense edX is
| way more disappointing than Coursera.
|
| But just like I stopped recommending Coursera when they started
| restricting access to their courses I look forward to shorting
| their stock when they go public and donating the profits to
| educational nonprofits.
| cute_boi wrote:
| Yup I am tired with this strategy.
|
| Start with free tell them you are doing novel thing ->
| Becomes Popular -> Start milking money
|
| I am thankful to Khan Academy for this exact reason. Everyone
| is equal in their eyes and doesn't discriminate people based
| on how rich they are.
|
| European and American people don't realize how much
| privileged they are.
| dmurray wrote:
| Coursera's upsell advertising (I'm working through, and
| recommend, Dan Grossman's _Programming Languages_ right now)
| seems to have switched away from advertising the vocational
| benefits of their certificates to making it sound like a
| charity.
|
| It used to be "get this certificate to get 6x more LinkedIn
| views". Now, 50% of the ads I get are "support Coursera's
| mission to bring people education for free".
| paulcarroty wrote:
| > But just like I stopped recommending Coursera when they
| started restricting access to their courses
|
| Same story, now I recommend Freecodecamp & Khan Academy. Some
| of Stanford free courses are very good too.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Imo, for-profit degrees have always been the actual problem.
|
| Paying to take a single class has never been the problem with
| for-profit education.
| Findeton wrote:
| I'm totally in favour of for-profit education. Obviously
| teachers need to earn money/eat. Unregulated education tends to
| have a wide variety to choose from, from free to very
| expensive, and that's a good thing.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Not for profit doesn't mean what you think it does. Teachers
| at not for profit schools earn a wage, just like at for
| profit schools. It means that the excess can be siphoned off
| to stock owners instead of being reinvested in the school.
| yunesj wrote:
| > the excess can be siphoned off to stock owners instead of
| being reinvested in the school
|
| Yes, but the excess isn't siphoned away to random people.
| It's paid to the investors in exchange for creating the
| school.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Can you clarify your argument, I don't get where you are
| going with this? Also once Coursera is on the stock
| market then you and I can own it and we didn't create the
| school.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > student loans
|
| That's the root cause of the problem. I seriously doubt the
| integrity of any system can survive the injection of trillions
| of dollars into the market. Schools want to capture as much of
| it as possible and that means raising tuition, dumbing down
| classes to make sure students don't drop out as well as
| creating fun but useless courses. It actually makes no
| difference whether students are learning anything useful or
| even if they're learning anything at all. They just need them
| to be enrolled in order to get those loans.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Have you used Coursera before? You don't have to pay to take a
| course. You pay for the certification of completion.
|
| Regarding for-profit education, does anyone here think that a
| government-backed education platform would have achieved what
| Coursera did in the last 10 years? Don't kid yourself. It
| wouldn't have been remotely close in quality and content and
| would have been a feeding trough for the political class. It
| wouldn't have even been granted funding.
| ghaff wrote:
| In a lot of cases these days, auditing a class doesn't give
| you access to anything other than the video lectures--so no
| autograded assignments, quizzes, etc. So basically no
| different than a bunch of YouTube videos.
| blockyhead wrote:
| It's crazy to me to demand education should not cost anything.
|
| Competition is a good thing and the best way to drive prices
| down.
|
| Just because bad actors defraud their clients, doesn't mean all
| business should be outlawed.
| higerordermap wrote:
| I am firmly of the opinion that industry should fund public
| education in their respective sectors. If every talented person
| gets best and practical-focused education possible, that's a
| plus for the industry. Commoditization of high quality
| education makes sense to them.
| baby wrote:
| I was extremely surprised, and disappointed, when Coursera
| started charging money for classes. It was really a revolution
| when it started.
|
| Yet, I still believe coursera is amazing and I'll buy some
| shares just to fund the idea. I guess that was the original
| intention of the market.
| riffraff wrote:
| are they actually charging for classes now, or just
| certificates?
| duderoso wrote:
| just the certificate. and you also get access to some extra
| things like the autograder in some classes. But otherwise,
| nothing is different.
| rubin55 wrote:
| Actually, I was doing some updated courses a while ago,
| which I started a few years back and wanted to finish. I
| could follow the videos and reading material, but I could
| not do the end--of-week quizzes without paying. This
| really put me off.
| f6v wrote:
| It's vastly different for many courses. The exercises are
| often paywalled, which means you can't put your skills to
| the test.
| ghaff wrote:
| And at that point, you're just watching videos and, while
| people learn in different ways, you may be just as well
| or better off picking up a book and taking advantage of
| resources like MIT OCW.
| 3eto wrote:
| I'll be taking the other side of your trade and shorting the
| stock, every time I win I'll donate the cash to educational
| nonprofits.
| cromka wrote:
| Felt exactly the same. I hope Khan Academy will evolve into
| what Coursera originally promised to become.
| baby wrote:
| I don't see Khan Academy or Brilliant as being the same as
| Coursera.
| 3eto wrote:
| I hope you're right and Khan Academy won't ever be the
| same as Coursera, I hope they will remain free and can
| grow into becoming better than Coursera, perhaps
| educators on Coursera will start sharing their courses
| for free on Khan Academy.
| ghaff wrote:
| >It was really a revolution when it started.
|
| Many people thought it was anyway.
|
| In practice, it ended up being mostly another source of
| lecture videos used by motivated professionals with generally
| solid fundamentals. For which, frankly, there were already a
| lot of resources out there.
| cabaalis wrote:
| > but I thought we were against for-profit education?
|
| So it just .. shouldn't be allowed? Free markets allow you to
| set your price for your abilities and have agency over your
| future. If I want to charge people something to teach them
| something, I don't want a group of hackers telling me I can't.
| fibers wrote:
| > This will probably be downvoted like crazy here, but I
| thought we were against for-profit education?
|
| Well you are on one of the hotbeds of the internet where the
| mantra is 'monetize everything and see what sticks' sooo
| sammorrowdrums wrote:
| I'm one of the faces of the Coursera ads (they interviewed me
| about career change from drummer to deveoper). I feel exactly
| the same. When it was free, and when for profit institutions
| were experimenting more too, it felt like a revolution. The
| Stanford 'Startup Engineering' course on Coursera was only
| offered back then and it was amazing. Andrew Ng's ML,
| Prinston's Algorithms, all free including certificate.
|
| I used Udacity CS101, Google Python Class and loads of other
| free resources and changed my life. It was true when I said
| Coursers changed my life. What has been slightly sad as it took
| Coursera years to start seriously advertising with my face, and
| even when they interviewed me they were almost beyond
| recognition.
|
| It makes me sad I just happened to learn CS and software
| development during the online education wild west. That's what
| I dreamed of for everyone. Top level education for everyone,
| for free. I didn't care about certificates. I had knowledge and
| projects I could prove.
|
| It may not all be doom and gloom, but when people ask me for
| recommendations after seeing advert, I sigh a little, because
| situation isn't as great as it was.
|
| https://youtu.be/Z1lqnyEp38o
| Graffur wrote:
| Online learners need to be use multiple sources and tools to
| learn. Use some of Coursera's free content with some YouTube
| videos with some blog posts with some Udemy sales with some
| library books.
|
| It's unreasonable to expect one institution to provide all of
| the above for free and they just can't compete with the broad
| range of the internet.
|
| The internet itself is the revolution in learning, not
| Coursera and not Udemy.
| sammorrowdrums wrote:
| I don't disagree. It is true I feel sentimental, the
| sadness is only that what I had at that precise moment in
| history was so amazing and so "let's just try it and see
| how it goes" from educators, platforms and students that it
| made it so easy to access great classes including lecturers
| time from places like Stanford for free. What I got is not
| available for free. All the knowledge is available, from
| free and open sources though. Just not packaged as easily.
|
| But you are still correct.
| golergka wrote:
| If it provided such an enormous value to you, what's wrong
| with paying for it?
| sammorrowdrums wrote:
| For me nothing, in principal, but in reality I would not
| have done it. I finished Startup Engineering staying on
| friends couch between gigs. I did not have the cash.
|
| And when I first tried coding from a self-paced course much
| earlier on, I wouldn't have started casually with a
| paywall.
|
| Also, I valued the fact people in economies where they
| would almost certainly not afford US / European prices
| could freely participate as long as internet was available.
|
| For me it is sort of like if you had to pay for git. It is
| one of my most used and valued tools, but part of its
| inherent value is its ubiquity, which I do believe has only
| come to pass because of the fact it is free software in all
| senses.
|
| There's a difference between something we all have, and
| something we could have if we are able/willing to pay and I
| think education overall needs a bit of both.
| sammorrowdrums wrote:
| Also I would probably consider a pay-it-forward model of
| being able to sponsor others doing the courses that have
| subsequently brought me value, now that I have actually got
| some value from doing them.
| nosianu wrote:
| I took more than 60 courses on Coursera and edX, like the
| parent commenter mostly during the completely free days.
| About a fifth of it was top level, about a third was "easy"
| courses, for example history of architecture.
|
| I did not take a single course in my profession (I'm a CS
| guy doing architecture work now). Most of it was in
| chemistry, org. chem, bio-chem., anatomy, physiology,
| medicinal chemistry (drug development), neuroscience,
| biology/genetics, clinical study design - plus a lot of
| statistics practical courses (using R to do stuff, there
| was a very good multi-course series on Coursera).
|
| I would not have paid anything because 1) it was just for
| fun, I cannot make any money with what I learned, and 2) I
| was earning a pittance only because I was doing did for a
| few years while recovering my health.
|
| I think I can generalize the second point at least a little
| bit - I could see a lot of people taking such courses
| exactly when they are not busy in their jobs. It takes
| waaayyyyy too much effort to do this on the side when you
| have an active job and especially a family on top.
| Therefore I think a lot of the people who would be
| interested are exactly those who may not have the budget to
| pay.
|
| Even more so because there are plenty of alternatives (for
| me my learning marathon years started with 100 hours of
| physiology lectures in a Youtube channel, and if I had to
| pay anything for access there was no way I would have ever
| even found any for-pay courses in the first place since the
| whole thing was completely accidental, one thing leading to
| another), and also because those "certificates" don't mean
| a thing.
|
| The FOR PAY model removes all the "play" part, only people
| with a plan andintent come to such a place in the first
| place. I think free education would be far better,
| attracting more "accidents" like myself who never planned
| for any of it.
|
| Already when I took the courses I knew they were doomed to
| disappear (in that form) because there would be
| insufficient profit. I always thought some way to fund such
| sites so that they can provide FREE quality education would
| be better instead of forcing them into the usual profit
| constraints. Of course 99% would be "wasted" from the point
| of view of the monetary-minded people (for whom my own
| years-long for fun learning would be completely useless
| too), but even they might see that even just a tiny
| percentage of people who _do_ benefit and who would never
| found the opportunity in a for-pay edu system would be
| worth it, globhal-economically speaking. The price is
| insignificant compared to any presence-based learning (and
| having created multimedia learning content I certainly don
| 't undervalue the effort for even a single course, but it's
| a one-time effort, and the continued presence of TAs can be
| achieved from within the learning community, I did that too
| for some of the more technical courses, free support to
| other learners helped me learn that much more by having to
| research other people's questions).
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| Count me as another person for whom Coursera was a life-
| changer. I went from disaffected lawyer to deeply satisfied
| software dev in 4 years, in large part due to Coursera and
| edX, with nods to MIT's OpenCourseWare and Stanford's
| platform as well. Classes such as Nand to Tetris, Prof
| Sedgwick's algorithms, Prof Ng's ML on Coursera and MIT's
| Intro to CS and Programming on edX, among many others, were
| more than enough to get me to a place where I felt confident
| applying for jobs. (Especially when mixed with a few years of
| a Pluralsight sub as well, and some time as a volunteer with
| a nonprofit.)
|
| I am deeply indebted to Coursera, but I always felt like they
| would struggle making money. People are only willing to pay
| for certs if they mean something, and unfortunately they
| don't. When I interviewed, every place I met with was
| impressed by the courses I had put myself through and the
| knowledge I had gained -- but not a single one even asked a
| question about any certificates. I always thought a sub model
| would probably fit them better, but it's obviously difficult-
| nigh-on-impossible to claw back free content. If they wanted
| the content to stay free, they really needed the strong
| backing of some sort of private entity.
| sammorrowdrums wrote:
| 100% same. Never showed certificates to a soul. But just as
| with you, was is not too difficult showing knowledge in
| software industry, at least in most startups.
|
| And yes, some of the other platforms have been amazing too.
| I did the full databases course on Stanfords platform. That
| was priceless, and also free. Relational algebra was
| exactly the sort of theoretical knowledge that just
| learning from experience and docs doesn't teach.
|
| Interestingly I also find most companies I have seen
| willing to pay for courses want some kind of certificate at
| the end. They don't seem to value abstract learning, even
| though that's the part that their team leverage to
| hopefully help their bottom line.
|
| I want the platforms to make money, but I feel like
| universities who were not wanting to be left behind when
| the concept was emerging gave away far more for a short
| moment than they ever were going to continue to do.
|
| Certificates and credentials and things distract from
| actual verifiable learning in so much of education. It is
| deeply ironic because that is their entire purpose.
|
| I understand regulated industries like legal, medical and
| engineering need to have minimum standards that require
| certification, but yet the quality and reliability of
| practitioners varies wildly. I just feel like by turning
| education into a product, it is a necessary evil.
| Government funding is an avenue that lots of academic
| institutions go down. Perhaps governments should invest in
| more free and open education. Rather than for example
| funneling so much money to textbook companies.
|
| Call me naive and idealistic, I appreciate that there are
| problems and counter arguments, and as mentioned in many
| comments, competition does help to drive down prices. I
| certainly think we are still in a much better place now
| with it all. I'm still optimistic about all the amazing
| education opportunities online.
| ghaff wrote:
| >I always thought a sub model would probably fit them
| better, but it's obviously difficult-nigh-on-impossible to
| claw back free content.
|
| That's basically the LinkedIn model as I understand it--
| which has what used to be Lynda and maybe other things. I
| have it available as part of my company's continuing ed
| materials.
|
| But what works as a professional resource paid for by
| companies doesn't necessarily work for individuals who will
| mostly only pay for a cert that employers are specifically
| looking at. Maybe some would pay a Netflix-range monthly
| fee but I suspect not enough.
| Exmoor wrote:
| Anytime I see Lynda/LinkedInLearning come up I always
| mention that, at least in my area, a lot of local public
| libraries subscribe to give their residents free access.
| Although I don't think that site is as strong in the
| programming-type courses they have a _huge_ breadth of
| courses that can help the average person learn a new
| skill.
| sammorrowdrums wrote:
| What they don't really go into in edited interview properly
| is that early on it also felt like open courses online could
| end paying for mediocre teaching, you could basically skip
| around doing best-in-class courses from top teachers and
| experts in their fields, and it didn't matter if you had no
| money in the world, just internet and a computer.
| gojomo wrote:
| Who's the "we" who are supposedly against for-profit education?
|
| And, why would someone's negative impression of one particular
| for-profit education outfit - one whose abuses were strongly
| associated with a particular set of misguided incentive-
| misaligning government loan subsidies - turn them off against
| _all_ for-profit educators?
|
| Would either of the following formulations make sense:
|
| "I thought we were all against for-profit investor Bernie
| Madoff, why do people like for-profit investor Warren Buffett?"
|
| "I thought we were all against for-profit medical hype like
| Theranos, why do people like for-profit BioNTech's mRNA
| vaccine?"
|
| You shouldn't erase all the other salient differences between
| people & projects under some broad, & assumed derogatory, "for-
| profit" label.
| yunesj wrote:
| > I thought we were against for-profit education?
|
| Jeeze, not everyone on HN has the same viewpoint!
|
| These categories of schools just have different funding
| mechanisms and thus different incentive structures. Compared to
| private nonprofits, for-profits can crowdfund creation of the
| school, but give up some ownership. On the other hand, public
| nonprofits are controlled by politicians and the general
| public.
|
| > why did [many people] think that one for-profit is bad, and
| the other gets a free pass
|
| I suppose for most people it was a value judgement, rather than
| an ideological one. The same reason why someone might dislike
| McDonald's, but still like Veganburg. Bang-per-buck, many
| Coursera classes are a better value than those at other
| schools, whether they are for-profit, private nonprofit, or
| public.
| theptip wrote:
| I don't get why we'd dismiss a cheaper option out-of-hand. Easy
| to steel-man this one;
|
| * economy of scale means it's cheaper for the same quality
|
| * egalitarian access means you don't need X gpa to get the top
| classes
|
| * online means the TAM / impact is way bigger
|
| * lack of actual degree for most courses means you are spending
| your dollars on actual learning and not merely paying to signal
| middle-class membership
|
| I'm not necessarily buying in to all of these but I think
| there's clearly enough to justify the business on its surface.
| Haven't dug into the biz metrics though.
|
| Anecdotally a friend did Open University which is probably
| equivalent to the full degrees offered at Coursera, but less
| convenient. They spent years grinding out a degree after work.
| They are a data scientist now. So this path is valuable and
| increases access to (I'd argue overly) credentialed jobs.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Open University is an incredibly interesting idea to me, and
| apparently a respected University in the UK at least, but
| even with that it just doesn't feel right.
|
| For someone who did not take the traditional path to
| schooling, wanting to go back open access is amazing, but if
| the primary value of the credential is correlated with
| selectivity, I can't help but feel off. It effectively feels
| like pay to play and to the average person who hasn't heard
| of the school/program, does it signal more than a for-profit.
| I also couldn't be sure, not being familiar with how UK
| programs are generally structured, but a lot of the programs
| looks extremely superficial, and wide, like what you would
| get from a low tier AS program at a bad community college.
| This is kinda the same feeling I had with certain degree
| options through Coursera as well.
| theptip wrote:
| OU is legit. My pal did Physics, then got into an
| engineering masters at a good university, then did a data
| science for grads transition course.
|
| Flexible course curriculum but it seems they give you the
| stamp you need to get to the next level, and perhaps more
| importantly, the flexibility to do it at your own pace. It
| may be that as you say you can pick your curriculum to be
| shallow, I don't know the details I'm afraid.
|
| I think a lot of roles just care about box-ticking; degree
| in CS or related STEM field. The recruiter doesn't care
| where from if you tick the box. In some sense it's BS, and
| Coursera may be the cheapest way to hack the system here.
|
| My friend found it really rewarding and empowering to get
| his degree even though he took a detour to get it, so i can
| at least provide a third-hand vouching for the quality of
| OU from an educational content perspective, as well as
| passing the bar for credentialism too.
|
| Caveat Emptor, I don't have any positive or negative
| testimonials on Coursera for getting a job. And I'd
| actually suggest in software that you can get into the
| field without a degree much more easily than other STEM
| fields. But if you're not in a tech hub then the credential
| might help you to get a foot in the door if you are
| otherwise struggling to see a way to do so.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| I know two people with OU degrees (CS and Law respectively)
| and their qualifications are proper, legitimate degrees.
| The content seemed as challenging (frequently more so) as
| the material I had to contend with doing a full-time three
| year degree. But they did it over eight years while also
| doing a full-time day job. Anyone who can do that has my
| sincere admiration. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it.
| nprateem wrote:
| I considered doing an MBA with the OU. I called up, but I'd
| "missed the deadline", and I haven't gone back. The next
| round was starting in 3 or 6 months or something, not to
| mention it'd cost me several PSk. In the meantime I've
| continued to take many courses on Coursera.
|
| The only time a certificate would be useful to me would be
| if I wanted to change career. Other than that, I just want
| the knowledge, and Coursera lets me blast through courses
| to get top quality information. I love it.
| dvfurlong wrote:
| I wrote a summary of some interesting things I found while
| reading this S-1 here: https://davidfurlong.me/coursera-s-1 Hope
| someone finds it useful!
| nknealk wrote:
| Probably the most important line:
|
| To reinforce our long-term commitment to providing global access
| to affordable and flexible world-class learning, on February 1,
| 2021, we amended our certificate of incorporation to become a
| Delaware public benefit corporation. Public benefit corporations
| are a relatively new class of corporations that are intended to
| produce a public benefit and to operate in a responsible and
| sustainable manner. Under Delaware law, public benefit
| corporations are required to identify in their certificate of
| incorporation the public benefit or benefits they will promote,
| and their directors have a duty to manage the affairs of the
| corporation in a manner that balances the pecuniary interests of
| the stockholders, the best interests of those materially affected
| by the corporation's conduct, and the specific public benefit
| identified in the public benefit corporation's certificate of
| incorporation. See "Risk Factors--Risks Relating to Our Existence
| as a Public Benefit Corporation" and "Description of Capital
| Stock--Public Benefit Corporation Status." The public benefit
| stated in our certificate of incorporation is to provide global
| access to flexible and affordable high-quality education that
| supports personal development, career advancement, and economic
| opportunity.
| ericmay wrote:
| I guess we now have our own S-1 guy named Marc :)
| wcchandler wrote:
| Everyone has their own interests and some definitely have an
| ear to ground for certain things.
|
| He's following the rules and is opening up the discussion a bit
| earlier than others.
|
| I'm happy to see it.
| f69281c wrote:
| It's kind of crazy to see a tech IPO that doesn't come with the
| boilerplate "we make zero profit, we've never made profit, and we
| have no idea how to change that in the future" caveat.
| dougmccune wrote:
| Uhhh, are we looking at the same S1? Coursera currently loses
| money, has never been profitable, and does not provide any
| indication of when or if they will ever be profitable.
|
| From the S1:
|
| We incurred net losses of $46.7 million and $66.8 million in
| 2019 and 2020, respectively, and we had an accumulated deficit
| of $343.6 million as of December 31, 2020. We expect to incur
| significant losses in the future. We will need to generate and
| sustain increased revenue levels in future periods to achieve
| profitability, and even if we achieve profitability, we may not
| be able to maintain or increase our level of profitability. We
| anticipate that our operating expenses will increase
| substantially for the foreseeable future as we continue to,
| among other things...
|
| These expenditures will make it more difficult for us to
| achieve and maintain profitability. Our efforts to grow our
| business may be more costly than we expect, and we may not be
| able to increase our revenue enough to offset our higher
| operating expenses. If we are forced to reduce our expenses, it
| could negatively impact our growth and growth strategy. As a
| result, we can provide no assurance as to whether or when we
| will achieve profitability. If we are not able to achieve and
| maintain profitability, the value of our company and our common
| stock could decline significantly, and you could lose some or
| all of your investment.
| wcchandler wrote:
| Arguably - take away every University's endowment and watch
| how they'd do. Doubt they'd differ too much from Coursera.
| modeless wrote:
| I took Geoff Hinton's Coursera course on neural nets when it was
| first offered and it was incredible. No exaggeration to say it
| changed the course of my career. That's all to Geoff's credit of
| course, not Coursera per se. But the idea that you can get
| instruction from the world's foremost expert in a topic rather
| than whoever your university happened to hire, or even if you're
| not in university at all, is pretty disruptive.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| > rather than whoever your university happened to hire
|
| Two years ago Geoff Hinton requested his course be removed
| because it was out of date.
|
| At a university, at least at a post-graduate level, you are
| probably going to be taught by a deep learning researcher
| passionate about the subject, with the added advantage of
| support if you struggle with some concepts.
| modeless wrote:
| Yeah, it's definitely out of date now. That's Coursera's
| responsibility to replace it with something more recent.
| anonymousDan wrote:
| What are the main aspects that are out of date? Can you
| point to a more up to date course?
| obsequiosity wrote:
| True, but while there's a qualitative difference between
| traditional university provided education and on-demand
| e-learning, there's also a striking monetary and commitment
| difference.
| abraxas wrote:
| I also took that course. It might be a bit due to my less than
| stellar math background but mostly due to the way Geoff
| explains stuff that I had a really hard time keeping up.
|
| I ended up giving up and not bothering with deep learning and
| neural nets until the amazing, legendary, awesome CS231n was
| made available taught by Andrej Karpathy.
|
| I don't know what it is about the way Andrej teaches but it's
| so good that I literally binge watched all of CS231n over a
| weekend and then went back to the start and watched again while
| working through the exercises.
|
| Just goes to show that not every teaching style will fit every
| student and that's why online learning has a big future -
| teaching/learning style compatibility is a hugely under-
| appreciated issue.
|
| I admire Geoff Hinton. I'm also proud of his accomplishments as
| a fellow Canadian. But I'm not in sync with the way he explains
| stuff though I'll always watch every lecture and presentation
| he puts out on video.
| lordnacho wrote:
| The real benefit of this online course thing is that you can
| find multiple explanations of anything, instead of being
| stuck with whoever is teaching at your institution.
| modeless wrote:
| It was definitely not a casual course. I went in hoping for a
| graduate level course and that's what it was. I had to spend
| a lot of time on it. I didn't find the math too advanced but
| understanding the lectures and doing the exercises took a
| while.
|
| Karpathy's CS231n was indeed another great course. We're
| really spoiled for choice these days.
| nx7487 wrote:
| Risk vs reward, you probably _can't_ get a "career
| changing" course without making it too difficult for some
| people.
| huseyinkeles wrote:
| Karpathy really knows how to teach and keep you engaged.
|
| Random anecdote; I learned how to solve Rubik's cube and get
| to sub 30 seconds by watching his YouTube channel ~10 years
| ago (He was a PhD student at Stanford at the time). I was
| always amazed by his teaching skills even back then.
|
| https://youtube.com/user/badmephisto/videos
| breck wrote:
| Key numbers in millions: 2019 2020
| Revenue. 184 293 Profi. -46 -66
|
| Cash in the bank: 285
|
| Disclosure: IAN good at reading S-1s.
| totaldude87 wrote:
| any debt? i wonder what do they do with that much of cash in
| hand
| echelon wrote:
| I don't see a compelling story for their product. There's great
| educational content all over the web, much of it freely
| available. Their credentials are worthless, and in some
| industries may actually have negative value.
|
| They lucked out with coronavirus, as that sent people
| scrambling for distance learning. That won't last.
|
| edit: Apparently folks disagree. We don't all see the same
| things or interpret the future the same way. I think education
| as an industry is going to go into decline, but I don't see
| companies like Coursera as being able to thrive by feeding off
| the corpses.
| evgen wrote:
| They were already in a good position pre-Covid and that just
| amped things up for them. Your opinions on the value of the
| credentials is simply your opinion, and both the market and
| downvoters here seem to think you are wrong. The interesting
| revenue that has the biggest upside, IMHO, is for enterprises
| doing internal training and 're-skilling' for employees. In
| any company of more than a thousand people it seems there is
| some branch of HR that organizes courses on everything from
| how to avoid a sex discrimination lawsuit to using some ML
| library in the analytics stack -- this seems to be where the
| long-term money is when it comes to online education.
| echelon wrote:
| > how to avoid a sex discrimination lawsuit
|
| Where's Coursera's moat here? Dozens of companies offer
| this, and from what I can gather, companies will want to
| spend the minimum amount of money they can get away with to
| cover the legal liabilities.
|
| > using some ML library in the analytics stack
|
| This was a fad. You don't teach your average software
| engineers how to do this. If you care, you hire data
| scientists and have your own ML team. Or you just carry on
| with business as usual.
|
| edit: your downvotes flag my account and prevent me from
| interacting with the HN community. If that's how you'd like
| to do things, then fine. I'd rather this was an amicable
| discussion than a downvote party.
| evgen wrote:
| The moat is that Coursera can bundle all of these into a
| single package and sell it in bulk to these companies. No
| one wants to deal with this themselves. At the FAANGs
| that I have worked at there were teams devoted to this
| task, but it is the sort of thing which is easy to
| outsource and when it comes to certain compliance courses
| you sometimes need a legal imprimatur for the course that
| is a pain for each company to certify but easy for
| someone like Coursera to do.
|
| (I am not downvoting you, just commenting on why some
| people might be doing so...)
| ghaff wrote:
| While true, in my experience, companies are generally
| looking (rightly or wrongly) more for the sort of content
| that Udemy and LinkedIn crank out; i.e. practical hands-on
| material that's often relatively bite-sized. I don't think
| you typically see University-type courses on corporate
| training platforms--though I'm sure there are exceptions.
| WoodenChair wrote:
| > I think education as an industry is going to go into
| decline, but I don't see companies like Coursera as being
| able to thrive by feeding off the corpses.
|
| People have been saying that for years and yet there is
| little data to back it up. If anything in economic downturns
| people are more likely to go back to school so as not to
| waste the time being unemployed. The fact that Coursera is
| doing so well during this downturn indicates to me that the
| industry is just going to transform, not necessarily decline.
| At least in # of people touched, although revenue might
| decrease in aggregate. People need the motivation that comes
| from organized education, whether it be Coursera or college.
| grumple wrote:
| Companies like Coursera are the reason there is going to be a
| corpse. I went to university, but I've also taken many online
| courses from Coursera, Udemy, and others. Coursera's classes
| in particular were far better than my classes at that top 25
| university.
| echelon wrote:
| Maybe. That's awesome that you had a good experience with
| their platforms.
|
| The thesis I've come to believe is that universities will
| be abandoned by the majority of Gen Z because of the high
| cost and student debt issue. Also the increased awareness
| of the low value of a college education and the lack of a
| guaranteed employment.
|
| I think we'll see continued enrollment in fields like
| computer science, and I think the university and community
| college setting will continue to be popular.
|
| Unless Coursera and other platforms can attach value and
| employability guarantees to the credentials they offer,
| they're not a 1:1 replacement for universities. They're
| more of a form of "continued learning" that many
| universities offer to adults and seniors. Learning for a
| small audience that actively seeks it out.
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| >They're more of a form of "continued learning" that many
| universities offer to adults and seniors. Learning for a
| small audience that actively seeks it out.
|
| Which is why you heard so much howling when Udacity first
| "pivoted." Continuing education for mostly early to mid-
| career professionals, often with grad degrees is one
| thing. (And, yes, there are stories including in the
| comments here about Coursera being someone's big break
| but they're a small minority.) Which is great. But it was
| a real kick in the teeth to the people who saw MOOCs as
| this great opportunity for populations underserved by
| traditional higher ed.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| People don't go to uni to learn. They go to network, party,
| and get the signal that employers require. Coursera doesn't
| replace any of those.
| f6v wrote:
| I went to university after a relatively long(~10 years)
| software development career to study bioinformatics. It's
| something you can practice from the comfort of your own
| home, but you can't learn it without enrolling in the
| university program. There's just not enough resources on
| the internet. And don't get me started on other biotech
| degrees.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Since Coursera provides major-university graduate degrees
| including onramp programs that provide alternatives to
| traditional prereqs, it does provide the signal
| employers' require.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > People don't go to uni to learn. They go to network,
| party, and get the signal that employers require.
| Coursera doesn't replace any of those.
|
| I know this is a popular opinion on HN, but I think it's
| lazy and cynical and just plain wrong. Plenty of people
| go to university to learn, either because they felt that
| need or realised they had it in themselves when they got
| there.
|
| University education has many problems, particularly
| right now, but it has also made a large contribution to
| making the world we have today. I think it's worth
| valuting that.
| f6v wrote:
| > Their credentials are worthless
|
| The university degrees offered through their platform aren't.
| gibbonsrcool wrote:
| I recently signed up for a course on Coursera. Maybe I wasn't
| paying attention or maybe I was tired, but I didn't realize the
| plan was a trial that would automatically start billing. It
| wasn't even a month before I received a bill. Their policy is no
| refunds. It's an easy mistake to make and many other apps offer
| refunds for this. It might seem minor but it got under my skin.
| I've decided to never used them again.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| 2020 was a great year for Coursera. Good for them. This is a
| company that I am so glad to see reach IPO. Now they have to
| convince the market that 2020 and 2021 financial successes are
| indicative of structural changes rather than pandemic-specific
| gains. Page 21 of the S-1 can tell at least a book's worth of
| story.
| darepublic wrote:
| My experience with Coursera was very positive at first. I took
| the popular Andrew Ng machine learning course. Subsequent visits
| have been less positive as the site tried to monetize.. offering
| mostly meaningless certificates and intruding to authenticate you
| while taking quizzes (even though I didn't care about the
| certificate)
| xtracto wrote:
| To think that i took the original ml-course Ng) and ai-course
| (Norvig) years ago. Great courses.
|
| Currently I find Udacity model better than Coursera: I can get
| a course and take it in my own time without having to stick to
| a schedule. Also the fact that I pay for what I consume. I
| personally dont like subscription model for these things you
| may use once or twice every yesr
| azangru wrote:
| > Subsequent visits have been less positive as the site tried
| to monetize..
|
| Yeah, I remember Dan Ariely's course on behavioral economics,
| and -- my favorite -- Yuval Harari's course on the human
| history from the early, pre-paid-certificate days of Coursera.
| That was fun! I have a feeling that as the site became more
| commercial it has also become less fun.
| chmaynard wrote:
| I never understood why Coursera chose to use a .org URL, since
| they were clearly a for-profit corporation. Perhaps coursera.com
| was simply not available. Or perhaps this was an attempt to
| market themselves as if they were an educational institution.
| Anyone know the truth?
| swuecho wrote:
| They were none-profit at initial stage (free education for
| anyone, first Ng machine learning course), but later somehow
| turn to for-profit.
| chmaynard wrote:
| Coursera was never a non-profit corporation. They were
| founded in 2012 and raised an initial $16 million funding
| round backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New
| Enterprise Associates.
| lanecwagner wrote:
| I wonder if this is good or bad for my competitor site...
| cambalache wrote:
| No offense but your site is not a Coursera competitor. Coursera
| competitors are Edx and Udacity. Your site is a baby
| Codeacademy.
| justicezyx wrote:
| What's the valuation?
| bschne wrote:
| Coursera has definitely aggregated some great content, but the
| evaluations on most of the courses if you go for the certificate
| are ridiculous -- it works well for auto-graded programming
| assignments, but so much of the other stuff is peer-graded with
| lots of spammy submissions, so it's barely more meaningful than
| e.g. a microsoft certification.
|
| Does anyone have some experiences with their degree programmes?
| Curious to hear if these are more promising...
| latencyloser wrote:
| I'm enrolled in CU Boulder's MSEE program that's administered
| through Coursera. It's decent, definitely not as good as in
| person instruction (for me at least), but is probably a good
| deal for people who are ok being largely self-taught/directed
| and only need some light help from TAs if necessary. The
| content seems pretty good and up-to-date so far as I can tell.
| The price competitiveness and flexibility is ultimately what
| led me to give it a shot. I'm also doing it to complement an
| existing career, not bet my future on it, so the downsides for
| me are somewhat negligible vs someone with no work experience
| who might be doing the program. So take that as you will...
|
| The peer reviews are definitely better in the degree program,
| but there's always a few people not even trying, of course.
| Nothing that's really impacted my own work.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I looked at that program, but I was very cautious. It's an
| open program, which means you don't even have have to have an
| undergrad at all, albeit you do need to have an understanding
| of the prerequisites. While personally, I find this and the
| price point absolutely amazing, I have to wonder what that
| means for the value of the credential obtained. On paper it's
| basically paying for a degree and an MS-EE at that. From
| engineers I've talked to, they don't even trust accredited
| online programs.
| latencyloser wrote:
| CU Boulder advertises the resulting degree as
| indistinguishable from their on-campus program from a
| records perspective (you're even invited to the graduation
| ceremony afaik). How much truth there will be to this, I've
| yet to see.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I'd be inclined to trust the degree programs, but can't speak
| from personal experience. There are reputable universities
| putting their names on the line and giving out degrees. They're
| also cheaper than in-person degrees but way more expensive than
| the specialization certificates. There is clearly effort there
| and I'm sure you get real TAs grading your work and giving
| feedback, not peers, and the classmates are people who
| qualified to get into a MS program, not literally anyone who
| clicked a sign up button. UIUC and Penn aren't going to give
| you a MS if you didn't earn it.
| ghaff wrote:
| Based on my experience in a couple courses a while back, the
| programming auto-graders were pretty good. Not perfect, your
| code could presumably be a total tire fire but so long as it
| produced the right answer it was OK--which is admittedly a good
| part of the battle.
|
| But, yeah, every peer-reviewed assignment and use of discussion
| board was awful. This isn't a university where everyone is more
| or less on at least roughly the same footing with respect to
| language, educational level, and commitment. At least company
| certs have to maintain some quality floor if they're going to
| have some value for employers and therefore of interest to
| would-be employees. As soon as they become viewed as diploma
| mill trash they're done.
| chris11 wrote:
| In their defense, I went to a large state university, and
| some classes used automated grading as part of the assignment
| grade. One class was basically just one large group project,
| a large portion of my grade there was based on peer feedback.
| The most detailed code review I got was at an internship. But
| I do agree, I'd say in-person and online degrees should both
| be higher quality than a MOOC.
| geomark wrote:
| Agree on the peer reviewing in non-degree courses. I never got
| spammy-looking reviews, but I did get ridiculous reviews where
| one reviewer would grade high, another low and a third make no
| effort and just say "pass". It was clear that many had no clue
| what they were talking about or made zero effort. No way I
| would settle for that in a paid course.
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