Why paid programming courses suck (most of them)

Why paid programming courses suck (most of them)

Imagine that someone tell you “I can control the weather! Do you want tomorrow be sunny? The price is only $49.5 - and there is money-back if I’ll fail!”

This sounds ridiculous. Tomorrow could be sunny or not - and if it is, you lose your money. If it is not - you gain nothing.

It is similar with programming - whether you learn it or not depends on you. Any courses can provide just a bit of motivation and a bit of information. But as of information, you will nevertheless gather 95% of necessary info yourself (since none of the courses have such capacity). And as of motivation - of course you are to build most part of it yourself. Either you want to learn programming or not. And if you really do not - then no tutor can really help you. It is normal that some people find they do not like programming - all people are different and have different interests. To be successful it is just important to do what you like and not what you think you should.

And meanwhile there are free courses!

They work well both in sense of providing you with motivation and information. Even better since usually they are attended by more people and are thus driven to be relevant to wishes of most of their students. Information of them and their syllabus is open and so spreads far better.

And what is more important - if you find the course difficult or not corresponding to your intentions - you can leave it any time.

These courses usually provide additional services for payment - like more beautiful certificates and some kind of verifying your identity in some way. Also they may have some support from employers who are allowed to browse students’ profiles. But it is important that you can get the whole classes spending nothing except your time and your efforts.

Now let me list few of largest collections of free courses:

• Coursera - is probably the best known - I learned few courses about algorithms here, also about Cryptography, Machine Learning and Big Data.
• EdX - it is less known, but technically their platform feels better - often you can find here good courses if you miss some session at Coursera. I tried course on Haskell here and going to attend another on Python.
• MIT open CourseWare - this is also mature platform more targeted to technical courses. You may find popular CSxx classes here.

What about diplomas or certificates

Many people ask whether certificates of free courses are respected by employers.

I should say - usually no.

But it is just the same with paid courses. Even worse - at interview you have greater chance to met people who attended the same free course, but almost no chance to met those who even heard of some paid course you have completed - just because paid courses have smaller audience.

So certificates are mainly important for your motivation. To be hired you need to present only yours kills, not any papers. But it is what your courses and your devotion should build for you. Good luck! :)