Why you keep quitting online courses (and then buy more)

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It's about learning, coding, and generally how to get your sh*t together c:
In this video, I talk about why you keep quitting your online courses and then go and buy more. Then the cycle repeats itself...
🖱️ Some Additional Resources
========================
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.researchgate.net/publicat...
files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ...
I didn't address explicitly that having degrees/certificates that actually mean something (like for Coursera and Udacity) also helps a lot with engagement, although of course that also makes them more expensive: docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/cc7beb...
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🎥Other videos you might be interested in
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How I consistently study with a full time job:
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🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛About me
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Hi, my name is Tina and I'm a data scientist at a FAANG company. I was pre-med studying pharmacology at the University of Toronto until I finally accepted that I would make a terrible doctor. I didn't know what to do with myself so I worked for a year as a research assistant for a bioinformatics lab where I learned how to code and became interested in data science. I then did a masters in computer science (MCIT) at the University of Pennsylvania before ending up at my current job in tech :)
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[@TinaHuang1]

Head to brilliant.org/TinaHuang/ to get started for free with Brilliant's interactive lessons. The first 200 people will also get 20% off an annual membership.

[@christiansnaturestudio6599]

Just signed for the Data Science using your link!

[@omar126ali3]

I want to married with you Tina❤❤❤

[@christiansnaturestudio6599]

@@omar126ali3 that's creeping her out bro 😆

[@christiansnaturestudio6599]

@@annam9480 typically employees would prefer data scientists to have a master's degree

[@ramsyrama]

@@christiansnaturestudio6599 So true infact that's a paramount requirment in Data Science

[@boblangill6209]

I remember my Calculus instructor started one lecture session by asking "What does it take to get a college education? For some people, all they would need is a library card and the time to study what they want to learn. Others require detailed, scheduled step by step instruction. Most of us here are somewhere in the middle."

[@azarak34]

Plus networking opportunities & friendship/love-interest pools (ask how many people marry during or shortly after uni); plus identity status of a student; plus access to bigger companies; plus access to a lot of great deals both for travel and products (esp. true for Europe, USA not so much).

[@johnrobinson4445]

@FichDich InDemArsch What competition. Students study with no reference to other students. They may be graded in reference, but that usually makes the grading EASIER because no one is perfect.

[@johnrobinson4445]

@@azarak34 Most of those things existed long before university. And there are even now other ways to access those things, especially these days.

[@luisoncpp]

​@@johnrobinson4445 I agree with the grading part, but you can have competition from your peers if you look for that; it really depends if you are focused on approving or you are aiming higher.

[@thepinkestpigglet7529]

@@azarak34 said a college education, not an entire adult life

[@tabascu_m]

I've been tempted to buy courses but... Just found Microsoft Learn and The Odin Project which have been great to actually learn without spending a penny 👌🏻

[@TheSbarazzolo]

The Odin Project is so good, it's hard but so worth it

[@MrTk3435]

Thank ✨🙏✨

[@ayeshavlogsfun]

What is Microsoft Learn about?

[@tabascu_m]

@@ayeshavlogsfun It's about several paths towards IT! It has Web Dev, Azure and so on...

[@ayeshavlogsfun]

@@tabascu_m please share it's link I know TOP but not Microsoft Learn

[@LukeBarousse]

So it isn't JUST ME that has a problem with finishing courses! 🙌🏼🐙🙌🏼🐙

[@omar126ali3]

Please can I share Tina with you and play on the bed together at night ❤❤

[@shemaths1668]

You are not alone...

[@PEDROGARCIA-qj3gr]

what a self-satisfaction statement, pretty much most of humanity does not understand a language they don't use in their daily life, this doesn't mean leaning another language is worthless... to be happy with the world being just like you is not really something to be happy about, it's kinda sad. Not saying online courses are the sh*t but my god feeling realised knowing almost nobody finish them is not really a sing they are worthless... maybe it just wasn't your thing.

[@shemaths1668]

@@PEDROGARCIA-qj3gr no one said that in this comment section. What?

[@frog6054]

@@PEDROGARCIA-qj3gr What it feels like to be in post but clarity:

[@paolo.kernahan]

I am an online course creator but I’m also a consumer of online courses and other learning resources. I have been doing this for years. One of the challenges with certain online courses is they sometimes don’t reflect the need for attention retention. Doing a course of your own volition is difficult to follow through with, particularly if it is left solely to self-discipline, which few people have. Consequently, courses need to be designed to hold the attention and interest of the student-information can no longer be presented in a conventional manner. Course videos need to be ‘gamified’, and infused with interactivity to sustain engagement. Online courses also need to have small wins at the end of each module rather than some grand result at the end of 24 hours of videos. Many courses could also stand to be shorter and more narrowly focused on specific needs. Consumers of courses also need to bear some responsibility. I read ebooks and take online courses because I want to learn new skills that will help me get ahead in my business. You either want to succeed with the knowledge that will help you grow or you don’t.

[@luisoncpp]

Something that I miss in many Udemy courses are the assignments, just watching a guy building a project and explaining it is not enough. It's necessary to take a moment and to do things by oneself. Of course students can make their own side projects, but it would be practical to have assignments that are warranted to be solvable just with the topics in the current chapters and the ones before, a side project usually need to be jumping back & forth in the topics of any courses.

[@thefuturist47]

Udemy has outstanding courses especially with tech, programming, data science, but you have to know which instructors are the good ones. Once you figure that out it's really a gift.

[@FleetingDream755]

And how do you do that?

[@thefuturist47]

@@FleetingDream755 A little bit of trial and error, look at the ratings and reviews, look at the other courses the authors do, look at the breadth of content and check out the previews, and personally I want a minimum number of hours (at least 17-20). That sounds like a lot but at this point as someone who uses Udemy to supplement my school stuff in data science, I have a list of like 6 course authors that I'm ride or die for who have helped me enormously.

[@hraklispapas9968]

@@thefuturist47 Do you have any data science instructors to suggest?

[@codemadesense7811]

@@thefuturist47 Who would they be?

[@thefuturist47]

@@hraklispapas9968 Sure, I like Jose Portilla, ZTM/Andrei Neagoie (some courses are better than others, the ML and TensorFlow ones are good), and for more advanced ML I love LazyProgrammer. There is a fantastic Pandas course by Alexander Hagmann that I recommend. There's a guy called Mike X Cohen who has some great courses on necessary applied math. I recommend Jose Portilla the most for general data science. He's just so great.

[@blissmaster71]

That embarrassment you feel when you look at the description of a Udemy course, get that surge of optimism ("this course is really going to do things for me!"), you click on it, and it says "You purchased this course." --A long time ago. 😢

[@HolaSoyJillian]

Too real 🙃

[@go_better]

Bruh

[@ZoeMikelStites]

How dare you describe me

[@barondystopia]

Man, reading this made me cackle. I feel called out right now.

[@KenJee_ds]

I always thought it would be cool to make a course that let you earn back some of the cost you paid for it by completing sections. Wonder why no one has tried that, is capitalism to blame?

[@raphaelrocha313]

Yeah it exist, it's called a job ! When you finish the course and get one you will earn your money back

[@Rick_James02]

@@raphaelrocha313 How were you able to take a single course that landed you a job? Mind sharing the course?

[@raphaelrocha313]

@@Rick_James02 There is no course that will guarantee you a job, it's not the solution for the jobless rating . All the course are the same, will teach you the same with pretty words, so choose one and be accountable, after this you are more than ready to do your own project and create your CV. Btw, it's not a job guarantee but lot of ppl did the Odin project and it helped them to land jobs , Traversy Media/ The Net ninja KZbin channel aswell

[@shaniquabobbert6128]

Lingoda sprint gets you half your money back, lingoda super sprint gets you all of it. It's a language learning thing

[@danielv.4994]

​@@raphaelrocha313 I mean you're not wrong, but that kind of remark doesn't really make sense to apply here. Its like someone saying work environment should be comfortable, and someone saying they can have comfort when they are at home. Yes its true, but it dismisses the point altogether instead of addressing it. - Its just to add something to increase likelihood of completion. So if you're set on selling the courses for say $50. Then make the course $100. If they complete it within -x- amount of time, then they get $50 back. This allows you to sell courses for your intended profit while making extra money on courses people don't finish fast enough, and you'll likely have higher rate of course completion compared to other places since it'll have immediate incentive for people to finish. This is good for the business, and for the people applying. This could even be good for an industry as it can be used to drive an increase in knowledge being wider spread in a certain field of study. Some jobs do this to an extent to improve employee skillsets. If you pass a course that's related to your work at the company and show proof, the company will reimburse for part of, or all of, the course costs.

[@bbarnhouse9022]

Don't forget edX offers free "audits" for some courses. You get the same structured class without the testing or certificate. The biggest negative factor is that some of the courses also restrict access to the homework assignments. This can be a great option if you just want a good introduction as part of self-guided study. Or if you want to focus on a subset of the syllabus content.

[@TheMrApocalips]

I just learn myself that I don't need to be expert in everything, be everywhere, experience all. Unreal expectations, and outside pressure for strangly define success is what killing you. Just be honest, you can't be president, astronaut, engineer, lawyer, physician, profesor, and who knows what else at the same time. This is why I am at peace with myself.

[@farwahbatool6247]

jony sin$ can 😂 sorry, just made a little joke 🙂

[@pedrobastos8132]

A year ago I tried some Hydrology courses from a government agency from country (greetings from Brazil btw) and they were really cool: no boring video lessons to watch, you would donwload a bunch of pdfs to read and had two months to study them and and then do a test. I have to say that this method just worked for me waaaaaay better than the traditional video classes we expect from online courses, because the latter are just so boring, take too long to get to anywhere interesting and by the time they do I am already distracted by something else. By doing the "read this, do a test later" thing I can take the course's content on my own pace, I have much more control on how fast or slow I can take the content each day. Sure, I don't need to watch entire videos all the time, I can watch half a lesson one day and the other half latter, and sure I can skip parts or increase the speed, but the pacing itself is still dictated by whoever is presenting the lesson, so I feel like I leave very little agency.

[@irarose3536]

I do love the style of you explaining all that educational stuff🥰 Please go on💙

[@gra1nne814]

Paralysis by analysis is a big enemy of self-paced learning and these platforms with tons of courses do not help. Great video Tina! Also, Yuru Camp *_____* !!!

[@flabbybum9562]

Love your videos, you extract the critical stuff really well, and give a great explanation.

[@jekytck]

I just stumbled across your channel and I'm impressed: you're such a genuinely bright and brilliant person. I've spent several years studying these topics on a broader scale but it was interesting to see an applied case in an industry that is believed to be the emblem of human betterment... seemed a bit too good to be true. Anyway, you got my sub when I saw you promoting Brian Christian's Algorithms to Live by. You seem the kind of person that makes this world a little bit better, good luck!

[@paulofaro4773]

This video is so important and so useful! Thanks a lot for sharing your perpective about this topic, Tina

[@jaydingiesler5280]

These are some great insights. I’ve yet to pay for an online class like this, though I did try a trial to SkillShare I didn’t keep it. Idk, between wonderful creators like you uploading free content to KZbin, Facebook Groups, and the rest of the internet, I’ve never felt like I would get much greater value from a paid for course than I was already finding. I get that most of those platforms in some way compensate their creators, but for a lot of them it is just one more revenue stream to a platform they were already creating on.

[@catvyhuynh7359]

I agree these platforms sometimes discourage people to learn consistently, but the core reason is from us. As long as we truly want to learn something that we really need and like, we'll make way to complete the courses. Anyway, great review Tina. Thanks for sharing!

[@Liliquan]

Who cares about actual problems. If you’re a winner you’ll just overcome them. If you don’t then clearly you’re either incapable or unwilling. …… exclaimed the one divorced from reality.

[@PEDROGARCIA-qj3gr]

Pretty much. There is not any difference between bashing this courses or a proper education in a university; not matters if in from of you is the best teacher; you aren't learning sh*t since you don't give a f*ck to begin with, and many times is just that; you can see it in any university young adults who want to learn programming, because "there is where the big money is, bro, computers," even though they hate it with passion.

[@FactsandLogic]

wow, fantastic analysis of the market for online courses - it explains so much!

[@CapeSkill]

I think there is truth to what you're saying, but another truth to the low completion rate might be that people are figuring out how to not waste their time and look for only specific things. A lot of the courses usually have more than you need or something you might need in the future you could use as a reference to look back at, but might not need them here and now. Learning something you don't need now is a lot harder and less efficient, so people leave these sections for later use.

[@NatashaEstrada]

Yeah and also some colleges are giving their students unlimited access to Udemy and then suggesting supplemental materials from there to enhance the college learning experience. There was one college course I was taking where I probably referenced at least 4 Udemy courses in a week which I didn't go through completely. Though tbh most non-academic online courses simply don't have good instructional design. Or the creator sells the course before even creating it and then it all feels rushed.

[@ramsyrama]

@@NatashaEstrada you want to be school fed?

[@TheSplitTongue]

@@NatashaEstrada I had a very similar experience. My Uni gives all its Allums Udemy for free. So I have basically unlimited access to Udemy's catalog. While I try to stick with the courses I start I do drop most of them because they are typically garbo like mentioned in the video. For those college courses that required it for supplemental learning (or for when I was much to lazy to read,)I fell in love with he "1.5X speed" button. 😁

[@atlantic_love]

This isn't correct. The sole reason for non-completion is that the courses are full of fluff, often for the sake of padding total hours in order to sound like a more comprehensive course. Rarely are projects in these courses practical and reusable.

[@CapeSkill]

@@atlantic_love i have a lot of courses where all parts are actually useful and not padded. Calm down and bring ur ego down a little bit.

[@RachelledelaRosa]

Great video Tina. This is an issue for me too. I’ll commit to one course and finish it and make that a point. I have to say I go hard in the gym though 🤣 but I understand the concept.

[@noyuu3220]

I needed to hear this!

[@adamj1278]

I needed this video. I've felt stuck for a while bouncing between different courses on python trying to get to a higher level than beginner. Its been a struggle. I wish i had a personal mentor that would get me to my first python related job. My interest is in Data analysis or data analytics. Going to try and stick it out with the courses i have purchased and put time into. But I realize after this that I need to hone in on those key educational parts. Luckily I have already improved my decision making on which platforms to invest into by inspecting how their platform operates, cost, assessment, interaction, practice, etc. Thank you for this.

[@FroFoLife]

You should try challenges on hacker rank. Those are what a lot of jobs use to test your proficiency.(I need to log in and do some python challenges myself) I am doing the google analytics course on Coursera right now. I received a scholarship from Mom Project. I am earning a master's in business analytics currently but I feel the Google course has work scenarios that I find useful. The fact that I am currently working as an analyst is a huge motivation for me to finish the course. I want to be a better analyst and I find the content useful and directly applicable.

[@stemszz7658]

Definitely find myself in the same bubble. I always change material and find myself at ground zero and it feels like I’ve made no progress.

[@datanerd6935]

You might wanna prioritize Excel, SQL and Tableau/Power BI if you wanna be a data analyst.

[@oliviaanders1454]

This is such an original content and THE reason I'm subscribed!

[@stephenanderson5245]

Great information. Thanks for doing all that legwork. Very interesting and useful.👍👍

[@yccn410]

Thank you for sharing this!! Very helpful!

[@paulmilakeve]

Tina. As someone who is a lifelong learner, I find this video encouraging. I have subscribed to all of these services at some point and experienced the same problem with not finishing them. Sometimes too many options can cause paralysis. Too many things fighting for our attention. I'm actually putting together a buyers guide on these as we speak. Anyway, great video as usual. Subscribed to your newsletter as well. Looking forward digging into it.

[@atahanozgur]

I c itx

[@clingyking2774]

always productive lady, I love your work.

[@dandantin]

Awesome. I liked so much this vídeo. Congrats Tina.

[@leandromirandafahurmachado2094]

Oh, your ct shows up at the beginning of the video! 😻😻😻 Excellent argument, by the way. Love your content!

[@tim64163]

I've persevered through multiple 14h KZbin video to learn python 1 year ago. Coursera was actually a breath. I haven't had the chance to explore other learning platforms though. The ones you mentioned seems interesting.

[@JasonBlair]

This was helpful, and bonus points for that quick shot from Yuru Camp 😎

[@AngelGrey_]

This was so interesting thank you so much for making this video 🥰🥰

[@voidmoon1469]

Over the past year I've enrolled around 10 Udemy courses on my journey to transitioning to IT/Data. And I've listed the things that helped me finish a course by establishing a learning routine. 1. Watch the intro videos and make sure the pace is to your liking (also check if you can follow the speaker without too much trouble). 2. Check whether the course is split into proper sections with bite sized videos (max 15-30 minutes). This honestly helps in setting up a learning routine. 3. Hands-on projects. And I'm not talking about the MCQ quizzes. Proper hands-on homework/assignments relevant to the section and milestone projects throughout the course. 4. And the most important thing is, to select courses that genuinely interests you. Not because it's cheap, not because it's the trend and not because it has 100k enrolls. But even with that, there are still times when you are interested in one part of the course and not the other, thus not completing a course entirely. So don't beat yourself up ✌️.

[@aminmarkets8195]

Brilliant and well researched breakdown

[@pianoatthirty]

If your not completing courses, it just means a) you're not that interested in the topic to begin with or b) you are so used to distractions in life that the act of giving something your full concentration is something you need to work on. We live in such an amazing time where literally anything a person wants to learn can be learned. Sites like Udemy are a total godsend.

[@mafirus]

I totally agree, I would add two more: c) You just realized that the topic isn't as interesting as you thought it'b be. d) You've gotten the course for free.

[@Tntpker]

Literally don't need MOOCs or pay for any courses, everything can be found for free, from research papers (genlib) to open-source codebases

[@devforfun5618]

@@mafirus i would add 3, half of the stuff the course has you already know, but you still need to watch all of it, which makes it boring

[@chrisjfox8715]

One thing you're not considering too is what I often deal with. I do finish the online courses I take, but in my experience, Coursera is notorious for having a rather inactive Discussion Forum. Oftentimes there's sticking points in a lecture that need clarification (i.e., did the instructor mispeak, has the assignment changed since the lecture was recorded, etc). The forums often have comments from years ago that still don't have answers, and the questions you have today can suffer the same fate. Yes, there's many questions you have that can be solved with some google searching and existing discussions on the forums...but I can be pretty particular about the questions I have. Sometimes I want/need the kind activr discussion for certain things to click, and oftentimes the people that can help the most - without giving any answers or anything - are those that already know, not necessarily experts in the topic, but are familiar with what was and wasn't said in the lecture and the details of the requirements of the assignment. Seeking help externally can oftentimes be met with the hurdle of having to explain what you're needing help with without voiding the Honor System by sharing too much of what you've done. And sometimes the clarity that's needed is what's being asked of you and what tools you're expected to use and not use to acheive it - dare I say it but that's not always 100% clear..or worst yet, technical difficulties with the platforms you're being told you must use. I say this to say that I muscle through these things and eventually finish, but I can definitely see how some people would get massively discouraged..even if subconsciously so. There are certain topics that benefit significantly by having an active instructor to engage with. It can be a part of the learning process in and of itself to do your own digging, but there comes a line where that then begs the question as to why you're paying for the course if you have to do so. There's an entire world of knowledge at our fingertips, but different people need different levels and types of guidance/structure to best acheive it..no matter how interested they are. Many of these people may not be finishing all because the particular course/instructor/platform wasn't structured and designed best to suit their learning style for that topic. The course I'm taking on Coursera right now is highly detailed for a remarkably fascinating subject, but the assignments are a bit too open-ended for their own good (i.e., great for self-study in trying a wide variety of things but...) with a Discussion Forum that's practically a ghost town for the past 4 years. Not everyone can learn well that way.

[@yazgaroth]

Thanks for the vid !

[@MistaSmith]

Often only 10-30% of a course are really what I need right now to progress in my skills. Also if you do similar courses you find they will often contain some chapters that are almost identical. Just study what you need, then continue creating or helping others.

[@Hengul]

Thanks Tina... learnt a lot from this video.

[@amalosman4634]

This was soooo helpful thank you❤️

[@funginimp]

Coursera has very high quality lectures but I wouldn't overemphasize the significance of following their framework beyond watching the videos, which you can do for free by auditing a course. I think the value should be primarily about access to information and how you apply it, not obtaining proof of work.

[@DanielDogeanu]

Indeed Udacity is among the best and you also get a Nanodegree at the end. But I also had a really good experience with PluralSight. Some courses, especially on JavaScript, are mind-blowing! I've learned so much more from them!

[@efthymiosn3381]

Such an interesting topic! wow

[@viorelasilitra2484]

Is that a Thom Browne shirt? Loved the video, thank you for the deep dive.

[@zinwaiyan6474]

Instead of purchasing courses, firstly I make myself to know which topic should I learn, check the roadmap then learn from different sources for a topic to go deeper. It could be YT videos, articles, or documentation. It really does help me a lot.

[@qazyhn94]

i like this girl, her content is rly good

[@christyehlert-mackie8661]

Yes! I don't even open most of the emails I get from Udemy anymore. Constantly having "sales" lowers my perception of the quality of their classes. That said, I really should go back & take a look at the classes I bought from them & never completed or even started!

[@MrTk3435]

Tina, thank you 🔥🤟🙏🤟🔥

[@VY-zt3ph]

Thank God you made this video.

[@KaraboMoremi]

CONGRATULATIONS on uploading your 100th video Tina!!

[@stephendunning1510]

I have to agree with Udacity being the best, I have also taken like 30 courses (or more...) and Udacity is where I finally learned web development. Udacity teaches you much more like a university but focused on a skill which is amazing! Udacity also really focuses on how they teach you, who teaches you, and the process really well. It's definitely the best and good on you for making this video because I was thinking of doing something similar to this!

[@bigboy44110]

Solid work, as always.

[@bigboy44110]

Also thank you for referencing my favorite socialist program ... the post office.

[@danielv.4994]

I use coursera. I've been through several courses over the past 2 or 3 months and have several more lined up over the next couple months. I recommend going in with a goal and plan even before buying anything. Many courses you can audit before you buy anything so you can get a feel for the instructor(s) and course flow as well if that would make you drop a course, but for me I went based on my goals and what would look better on a resume. I want to be a software tester. Not like a programmer that just makes sure the code works as intended, but someone who specializes in testing software to break it or exploit its weaknesses in ways that aren't normally thought of when its being designed so those edge case program breaking bugs and exploits never come to the end user. I need programming and software testing experience and/or training to just start in this career. This meant I needed courses that would target either of these. Only keep reading if you have some time to waste since I delve more into my personal experience. :) ----------- I went with googles python automation track first. Then I went after Penn Engineering's (University of Pennsylvania) python and java intro certificate track. This may seem redundant, but google's course is better laid out for online learning making the experience smoother for learning something I was nervous about jumping into. The Penn certificate track started with python which allowed me to reinforce fundamentals of python and programming concepts, then step into java to expand my programming knowledge. Since I'm comfortable with concepts from the previous courses, I only had to worry about learning java itself while reinforcing and building my knowledge of programming concepts and mindset for resolving issues. Now that I'm comfortably in the door for programming, I'm starting the software testing course track from University of Minnesota that requires some foundation in object oriented programming. After I'm done with that course track, I have two programming projects lined up for reinforcing my programming foundation and I'll practice software testing methods on my own program's development. Then I'll start looking for work. These courses will give me the foundation for switching careers. The certificates from well known institutions will improve my resume with current education, and I'll have real experience with all skill sets by working on a project on my own and hopefully a collaboration work - something where I can program less and focus more on the software testing aspects. This all leads back to the beginning where I recommended goals and a plan. Mine is more of a serious one since this is for a career change, but the same can be done for any hobby. You have to remember that you aren't in a structured school program with most of these - Though coursera does a good job with the quality for course structure. I really mean the need to pass a class to progress to the next school year isn't a nipping reminder to take things seriously. So You'll have to create your own reasons to progress and I do this with a plan for learning, and setting to-the-point goals yourself that have their own set of focused reasons. Even if you want to pickup a new hobby, try to narrow down why you want to pickup that hobby and what it will let you accomplish. It'll help push you to finish the course(s) you've started. Even though switching careers is the goal - that's just a means to an end for me. There are more personal things I want to accomplish and experience, and those require me to career switch. Those personal objectives are the real things that remind me to log out of a game or turn off netflix and jump back into it. So really give some thought about why you're doing what you're doing. If you can't find an important hook, then it'll be harder to stick to it since you'll have nothing concrete to remind yourself if you start procrastinating for too long. --this only applies to someone like me who's new found enthusiasm for something can only carry them so far--

[@rarisenpai]

This is great

[@justinhoward1369]

I think Tina makes many valid points. The point is the market is totally over saturated now its genuinely hard to know where to turn to for quality learning. I will stick with Coursera, KZbin and free platforms for the time being.

[@v_iika]

Thanks for showing the big picture of incentives behind making courses so quittable

[@blankseventydrei]

You made a lot of good points Tina, one thing to add, I use Coursea through my work and at home Skillshare. Coursea is better because there are usually projects that required you apply what you "learned", this help my VBA useage. While Skillshare, it takes a while to find a good instructor and you have to develop your own projects, which can be time consuming.

[@vladimirpopoviclipovac9689]

I don't think you will find anything better then Harvard's CS50. It is amazingly engaging, has a grading system, great community, and it's FREE. It is the first course I am really determined to complete, and I am already 2/3 in.

[@LordAthos18]

Pretty good video. Thanks for it! Quick question, what are the dimensions of your desk, the table top material? I am looking for a bigger one and yours seem to give you plenty of space to work. Thanks for your time and attention.

[@lesleyladyloca]

So true about the quality of courses. I treat them like shows to watch at night time instead of TV shows just to make sure I'm getting the most out of my subs 😅

[@quitplayingboss609]

🙏👁️🙂Hello teacher, thank you for teaching me. Everything might just be a good start. and we must continue to learn about this world👍🙏👁️😁

[@moonlambo5229]

You have to use discernment when picking a UDEMY course. I've learned so much from them.

[@sahej97]

Thanks for this video! What are your views on pluralsight, datacamp, educative and linkedIn learning in terms of the learning they impart to professional software engineers?

[@jasonamos4336]

Great summary of the eLearning market!

[@filipem.3845]

Hi Tina, this was a great content. Would you do a video showing your favourite online courses for data analysis on Udemy? Thanks

[@jacokyle0160]

Hi Tina, I’m a fan of your channel. I just graduated high school and I’m majoring in Computer Science next year. I want to spend the summer coding, but I don’t know where to begin. I’m essentially starting from scratch after taking a course in Python from Udacity. My main interests are working with data and math (I’ve taken multivariable calculus). I’m asking you because I enjoy your helpful content, and I know you have experience answering these types of questions. I’m looking to learn robust skills and make cool projects and generally avoid being bored. Hope you can help. Thanks.

[@Liliquan]

I usually quit online courses because I find them boring or uninspired. Recently I’ve completed multiple learning German courses because it was set up where each video was 3 min long. Furthermore, there was no homework as all the exercises were incorporated into the videos and everything learned would frequently be reinforced. So I didn’t have the pressure to spend a long time studying nor the pressure to do external study after I’ve already studied. I ended up watching 25 to 40 videos a day even though I could’ve done 1.

[@joselinefebres4877]

Hello, could you give me the link of the german course?

[@maahibanerje9013]

I bought 10 courses from udemy around 2016 and never looked at them again.... But thank God the courses are still relevant today... So i guess now I have to finish them... Thanks for making this video... And lowkey I am happy that people don't finish the courses they buy, that means the real life competition is always lower than what it seems..

[@guillaumegermain4951]

I have done a lots of Coursera courses, and happened to finish all but 2. Basically I spent some the time selecting exactly which ones were really relevant and interesting for me, and did only one at a time. For the udemy ones, somehow it was not as good. I discovered recently Pluralsight and the courses I did on them were really good, brought me really forward. I think for the money, good courses for 50 a month or less are great value. That’s something you really should consider as a life investment. It makes you better, and nobody can steal it from you

[@minhtung12302]

Thanks!

[@patagum8289]

I remember trying to do some online courses on Udemy and tried to reach a teacher each time with no result. Sometimes I'll have a question and see that other people asked the same thing but there would be no responses from years back. I don't mind online classes, but I would at least like someone to reach out to, and I feel like I had better luck with online college or Microsoft learn, or anything that has more of a hands-on approach since that's the best way I can learn and get feedback.

[@CarlosGarcia-gy9vh]

tyty so much for this vid, rly helped today bc so tru some udemy are mid and some are helpful def recommend only buying if discount lol

[@user-eu5ol7mx8y]

It's true for everything. Video games completion rates are very low as well. There is just so much affordable content these days, it's easy to buy a lot, and the more you own, the harder it will be to focus on any one of them. You need to be focused and intentional in your choices.

[@falcon04v8]

i new here. and i quit my many courses XD btw i loved your messed up hairs and the way you says BUT!! lol.

[@xl0xl0xl0]

Instructors have the same issue. A 7-week course will often be awesome for the first 3 weeks, with clear in-depth explanation of the material and interesting practical part, but the quality will decline as the instructor is running out of time and energy to finish the course. This of course leads to students quitting the course half-way through.

[@neurojitsu]

I think one of the best analyses I've seen of the "content quality" problem that you identify, is the Semafor interview with Medium's CEO. He points the finger at the "content creator" economy and its objective to monetise audiences, which is the business model of the whole internet. There are a few great content creators, and then there are the majority of content marketers creating content... who have been taught to fake it til they make it... and so many audiences buy courses from marketers not subject matter experts - or just as bad, from experts who know nothing about instructional design.

[@SirD31V1D]

That mechanical keyboard is just amazing! From the very first second of the video it just got my attention. lmao.

[@_chris_6786]

In my opinion, we tend to watch several courses of the same subject, because one course teaches some tecniques while the other teaches different techniques, or adds more materials to learn from. As developers, if there are 20 ways for creating a password generator, we wanna know those 20 ways.

[@Charvin]

I have collected quite a lot of courses on udemy over a while. Since a month, I'm on a path to learn and complete at least one course each week or at a phase I can take it. Small steps. Oh also, Practise (For the coding and office courses)

[@mintakan003]

I think it depends on the learning style. I consider myself a pretty systematic learner. Initially, I do a "broad survey" of different topics. This leads me to audit a lot of courses. Then I finally do a "deep dive" on what I want to put my efforts into. I usually do this, for courses that are exceptionally well taught, and on a topic matter I want to master (or be reasonably competent in). In this case Andrew Ng's introduction to machine learning, and then deep learning, on Cousera, was a real pleasure to get into. Completed these, and got my certificates. The Udemy courses were all audits, surveys of topics I am semi-interested in (e.g. cybersecurity, AWS certification, reinforcement learning, ...). But it's people like me, who will screw up the stats, for completion rate, in Udemy.

[@uwillnevahno6837]

I think there's also a fallacy that courses will get enrollees skills for jobs and promotions. I completed the Google Analytics Cert and it did zilch for me.

[@justinwuu]

lol yes same no one cared

[@uwillnevahno6837]

@@justinwuu even linkedin content is useless.

[@justinwuu]

@@uwillnevahno6837 LinkedIn is very useful in HK. Tons of recruiters with great job offers. Even found my current job there 2years ago and am getting a few great offers lately

[@vidyareddy8005]

Won’t Google Data Analytics Course provide career guidance where people are interested to hire us?

[@uwillnevahno6837]

@@justinwuu I speak of the courses on linkedin learning.

[@roelgc]

Omg, i have zephyrus g14 silver and that HM aeron too. Anyway, yeah, I agree with your points. in fact, i have not completed a single course from the courses I paid on udemy :(

[@leonardtangty]

Good video.

[@dixztube]

I’m learning go now (seemed better than c and not a fan of python) coming from a decent node background. I use an ad hoc application of mdn references Official doc pages < 20min yt video on a lang or framework specific tech. Within a couple days feel pretty good about the basics and getting a restful api built. Course work never really worked well for me except free code camp. Since then just jumping in a real world project (even if for a quirky biz idea) has been somewhat effective path.

[@donstamps]

Good presentation. Good points! From a guy who has over 15 pages of Udemy courses :D

[@MCKINGINDIA]

Very nice 👍

[@felixc.programs8209]

Very informative! Your content really helped me find myself as a new Tech KZbinr that switched careers to the tech industry recently. So thank you for that!

[@TinaHuang1]

Congrats!!

[@indo9005]

Thank you for this video. I've never thought of this angle before. There is one constructive feedback, tho: Even if you have a text that said you don't diss any particular course, you should have blurred the names/face of the instructors because whether intentional or not, you might be hurting their reputation, livelihood and feelings. Unless you've personally studied their courses and find them bad, it's not nice or fair that some budding instructors find themselves arbitrarily shown as examples of low quality just because you need that visual engagement.

[@stephanierodriguez1540]

This is just the video I needed today. I purchased a Udemy course today and was super disappointed

[@KOgundeji]

I agree for the most part, but there's an assumption that the Paradox of Choice is universal (or maybe just the majority). I do consumer research for a living and there are generally two types of people: those that want to find the "best" option and those that choose the first choice that meets their criteria. Not sure how many people fall into each bucket, but each group is sizable, with the latter group probably not having the "buy multiple options" problem that the former does.

[@fmilioni]

I bought a $1000 online complete game design course and never watched. This haunts me every day.

[@ClaudiaDavZam]

Hi Tina, just letting you know that for a one time payment of 50 usd, you can personalize your link to remove the dot substack part.

[@bernardsoh3559]

Thanks for sharing. I think the problem is incentive, focus and time also. I have gone through this process where I was working and trying to learn more stuff and failed. But now I have time (redundancy) and I have a lot of incentive to learn things / get certified but do not want to pay the full price thus Udemy gives me a cheap way to find out if I want to continue my learning in a particular subject. Suddenly, I completed a course that had 2018 year marked in the title, in 2022. It also provides added learning to my other paid courses either in the form of revision or something never covered. I have also found that it is easier to complete a 6-8 hour course (which would take me about 20 hours) than one that is 20 hours or 60 hours long. The easiest to complete are those 1 hour courses but as they are priced the same as the 60 hour courses… well, which would one choose? But I have found that since I never complete anything beyond 10 hours, I stopped buying those. Hope this helps also.

[@YuzuYuiAngelaAki]

Thank God...I'm not alone

[@keviny7480]

Hi subscribed! your videos are gems. I have a question. What course will you recommend to people who have no IT background? I have recently started studying Python. I have found out there are many online courses including the ones you mention in the video. I am still not sure which I should go for. Was a Master of Computer and Information Technology worth it? How hard is it to get in with no IT background or how good your grades should be? Any info will be highly appreciated. Thank you.

[@byst017]

LMAOOO I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ME, tysm 😭🙏🏾

[@theafrotect]

For front-end development, I would say Scrimba checks all those "good" boxes.

[@MiroKrotky]

I love brilliant, they have about third of content free but soon ima buy the premium cause its very worth to me

[@river17006]

I think also (in the US) higher education is sooo expensive these companies might be taking advantage of people who want to build skills to get a decent pay by taking these courses

[@Belgarathe]

For college kids I recommend they look up Codepath. Codepath doesn’t charge any money to students. It is taught live with instructors (I was one of them). The courses is structured around projects. The first three are hand holding with step by step. The second half the course is group project where the students create their own app. There is always support from instructors and TA’s. They also provide support for resume review and interview prep. No cost to students. No obligation though if you can become a volunteer it’s good to give back. Course taught are the practical kind. Android and iOS development. Intro cybersecurity and data structures. It hard to get in and they do take attendance but again really awesome resources for college students. Look them up and feel free to ask me questions