Do you always have this question- Are Udemy Courses legit?
Are you taking an Udemy course and are sceptical about whether it will be helpful in upgrading your career in any way?
Don’t worry, you have landed on just the right page.
Here I’m going to talk about everything about various courses offered by one of the largest online course providers, Udemy, and the legitimacy of the course it has offered.
Advancements in technologies have made the internet the powerhouse of almost all businesses and industries all around the globe. We can see the influence of the Internet everywhere, including the online education industry.
The Online education industry has skyrocketed in the business with a $187.99 billion increase in the market size and has gained huge popularity among the masses which was not the case when this industry was just started. Asia, Australia, Africa (the developing world) has become the fastest-growing marketplace for the Online Education industry.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, people who are stuck in their homes have started taking up courses online in order to learn new skills, enhance their job prospects, or just for fun.
It’s not wrong in saying that some people out there have developed a new kind of hobby which is buying online courses and collecting their certificates!
These certificates are applicable almost everywhere.
But as the old saying goes, everything has two sides.
Online education has surely taken up the whole education industry to a whole new level, but there are certain drawbacks that should be mentioned to everyone who’s willing to take up online courses in these times.
So, now let’s move our discussion towards Udemy, which is one of the leading online course providers right now in the world, and see if Udemy Courses are legit and should be or should not be taken up the people.
What is Udemy?
Udemy is an online course provider. It has a wide range of courses listed with it and most of them are on-demand skills. In comparison, Udemy courses are cheaper in comparison to its competitors.
This makes it easily accessible to a larger audience.
One important point that has to be taken into consideration is that Udemy is a platform where anyone, you know a skilled individual, university professor, school teacher, or student can upload their own course.
It rarely has courses which are offered by universities. This explains why Udemy courses cost cheaper than the rest of its competitors.
Most of the courses offered on Udemy are more of skilled enhancing courses than academic courses. For example, I personally took a course on How to write White Papers for Business Marketing.
If you are someone who belongs to marketing or business development, you would understand that White Papers are generally one of the best methods of marketing. It was a short course, which explained all the necessary pointers and the way to proceed while writing a white paper. There are tons of skill-enhancing courses on Udemy.
You name it, Udemy has got it!
But the real question which arises is did taking this course helped me in any sort of way or you know just enhanced my skills or was it just a waste of money?
Let’s get it answered in the next section!
Are Udemy Courses legit?
You might have read several articles before this or this might be your first article on this topic. But before I start explaining to you whether Udemy courses are legit or not, I shall tell you that the answer to this question is very subjective.
Why?
It because of the simple reason that everybody gets a different experience while taking an online course. This experience is based on a lot of factors, which will be discussed in the latter sections.
According to me, Udemy courses are legit of course because there are real people teaching you skills based on their experience and knowledge. But does it mean that its legit for you “PERSONALLY”?
Well, the only person who will make any course legit is you, yourself. Why I say this, is because I had a very similar experience where I doubted the entire concept of Udemy or Online Education.
How to write White Papers was not the first course I took. Before that I tried taking a lot of other courses. I was all excited and watched the course videos for one day and that’s it! I became really casual for the rest of the days.
Before the end of the course I asked for a cashback. So, you see those courses were not as fruitful as I wanted it to be just because of my lack of interest. However, had I given my time and attention to the course I would have taken a lot from it.
We got a little idea over here that if you want to get something from an online course you yourself should be disciplined and give your 100% efforts. There’s no way the online course instructor will come and ask you to pay attention!
Now talking about how legit and useful the certificates are provided by the Udemy courses. See, Udemy offers discounts on each of its courses every month.
This makes affording the course sometimes a lot of courses easier. But if we go deeper there are many instructors who are not even qualified properly (as stated before, anyone can sell their courses on Udemy) sell courses on Udemy for their profit. This is the main reason why Udemy certificates are not given much importance by any employer in India.
So, we can say that Udemy courses are just for personal development and skill enhancement. It won’t help you get a highly paid job or a decent job!
Now taking our discussion further, let’s talk about how much time you should spend on the courses and are there any kind of examinations which shall be taken in order to get the course certificate.
The course is self-paced, which means that you can do the course whenever you want to according to your comfort. There are also few practice exercises which the instructor gives in between the course duration.
It is not compulsory, and you can proceed further without completing the exercise, it is all on you.
However, it is recommended to try those exercises in order to take full advantage of the course as it really helps you to understand how well you have understood the course.
Regarding examination, Udemy courses do not give any sort of exam or test assignments to the students. The only criteria to get the certificate is completing the number the hours the course is of.
Is there any sort of one to one interaction between the course instructor and the student?
No, as of now. However, instructors do provide their contact information such as their E-mail addresses to the students at the beginning of the course. The students are free to contact the instructor whenever any queries or confusion comes up. Although, there’s no time frame and guarantee that the instructor would reply to the email.
One thing you can do to get your queries sorted as early as possible is to google it out!
Do you get any sort of interaction among the other students who are taking the same course as you are?
No, you will not be in touch with any other student who is doing the same course as you. So, its all you and the instructor.
What is the Quality of the classes?
The instructor usually gives the lecture mostly using the PowerPoint presentation they have prepared for the course.
Also, there will be a video of them explaining the points running along with the presentation. PowerPoint presentations are supported by visual aids sometimes like images and short animated clips.
Sometimes, the courses do not appear to be as worthy of your time and money as you expected it to be. Sometimes, you get the course from highly trained professionals also, which totally deserve all your time, effort, and attention.
Do you get any sort of study materials from the courses?
Yes, often the instructor provides you with study materials in various forms such as PPTs, PDFs, booklets, etc. You then have the access to these study materials for a lifetime as they are easily downloadable.
However, you should also keep in mind that these study materials are really brief, and you hardly get any detailed study material. Sometimes, the instructor provides the exact same PPT that he or she uses for the course. These PPTs usually have one- or two-line points and is hard of any use.
So, I would recommend you making your own notes after watching the course videos. There is n number of ways you can do it. You can anytime refer to Google or YouTube. You can also download free books from the internet and make your notes.
Trust me when I say this, it really helps you when you make your notes like this. I did that and it really helped significantly in improving my skills in writing a White Paper.
Now that we have discussed major points which you should take care of while buying an Udemy course, let’s talk about how you buy a course on Udemy!
Steps to Buy an Udemy Courses
Buying a course is simple on Udemy. All you have to do is select the course of your choice and then pay for it. But before that, you obviously will have to log in through your account or make an account to log in to Udemy.
Udemy courses are really cheap when compared to its competitors like Edx, Coursera. Along with that, Udemy also offers several discounts offers every month.
The cost sometimes drops till INR 400. So, before you buy a course just wait for some days, and you never know you can save money!
You can also Udemy Pro version for 7 days of free trial in order to understand whether the course you are planning to take fits you or not. After this, the cost of the course gets deducted from your bank account.
We have already talked about various aspects of taking an Udemy Course. But to be more thorough with our discussion lets us look at the Pros and cons of Udemy courses.
Pros and Cons of Udemy Courses
Pros
- Skill Enhancement – I really love this point because it actually holds true for a lot of reasons. Firstly, if you want to learn something new and cannot afford to take an actual walk-in class, then Udemy is for you to trust me.
- If you are working in some field professionally and want to enhance your knowledge on a particular aspect regarding that field, you can easily opt for Udemy.
- No Age Bar- This is a really important point to mention because Udemy doesn’t put any age bar in order to take the course. Therefore, anyone of any age can actually take these courses from the various disciplines that Udemy has to offer. Udemy clearly works on the principle of Education has no age limit. You can be 80 and still you can learn.
- Self-Customized Course – When we attend classes in the traditional way, the teacher or the instructor usually has to pay attention to each and every student. Sometimes it becomes really boring for people who can grasp concepts really quickly. Sometimes it becomes for the people who learn the concepts slowly. But in Udemy, everyone has the independence of time and can finish the course according to their own pace and time. That’s why it’s Self-Customized.
Cons
- No One-to-one Interaction between the Student and the Instructor- This point was dealt with earlier also. The reason I added it here again is that it is really important. In order to educate a person, one-to-one interaction is really necessary. You never know when the student might get confused over a simple topic and then remain confused till the end.
- Lack of Student’s discipline- You might have very well understood this point from my example which I stated earlier. It’s really easy for someone to get distracted or lose interest in the course they are taking.
Pricing of Udemy Courses
Pricing for Udemy courses is relatively low. It goes till $10 for new uses. The most expensive of Udemy courses cost about $199.99, for the reason that these are advanced skill enhancements offering courses.
The plus point is that Udemy offers discounts once in every month. So, you can technically save a lot of money.
Faqs On Udemy Course:
✅ Is there any limitation on the number of courses that can be bought at the same time?
No, there’s no limitation on the number of the course that can be bought from Udemy. You can buy 10 courses in a single go, pay for them, and get access to them for a lifetime.
💼 Is it worth buying udemy courses?
Yes. No wonder why Udemy is trusted by millions of learners with over 250,000 courses. If you are interested to learn new skills, then you should definitely go for it.
🎉 Is the amount paid for Udemy courses are refundable?
Yes, the amount you pay for the course is totally refundable. You can finish the course and ask them for a refund. But you have to keep in mind that neither you will get the certificate nor the lifetime access to the course in this case.
⚡ Do we have to pay monthly for the courses on Udemy?
No, you don’t have to pay monthly. The only payment you have to do is when you buy the course. That’s it.
✔ Is it safe to buy course from Udemy?
Udemy is completely safe and secured. It never stores any information of your payment. When a payment is made, Udemy sends it directly to payment processors.
💼 Why are courses on Udemy so cheap?
Most of the courses are self-hosted and shared by experts from various fields. Also, everyone can sell their courses here.
⚡ Can Udemy courses get you a job?
Yes. Udemy can help you get qualified for the new skills and get the job in the specific field.
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Conclusion: Are Udemy Courses Legit & Worth The Hype?
While going through the above-mentioned points, now you might be very much clear whether you should opt for the courses provided on Udemy or not.
You can take the course for your personal development, skill enhancement, extra knowledge, or learn something new. But taking these courses in a job perspective won’t help you.
You should also be self-disciplined and punctual while taking the course.
Only then you will actually get the full advantage of the course. Being overly excited about the course on the first day and then not continuing it will lead you to nowhere. Also, you don’t have to be of a certain age in order to take Udemy Courses.
Anyone of any age at any time can learn through these courses and utilize their free time in a much productive way.
Also, you should always keep in mind that any Course is legit only when you want it to be. So, stay true towards learning and get the most out of it.
Remember, this internet era can be a boon if we all utilize it more productively rather than using it for our social media presence.
