Looking for online courses for free to improve your productivity? Udemy and Coursera are the best platforms to study online, they both offer some free courses and also some paid ones with certificates. Today we will help you out choosing the best platform for your interests and also point out some of the best alternatives to each one based on exactly what kind of learning you’re looking for.
PLATFORM AND INTERFACE
Both platforms are well organized and the interface makes it easy for us to navigate around. Udemy offers a wide range of courses on almost every topic you can imagine, while Coursera is more focused on academic topics. On both platforms, you can get online courses for free, for example, this course about Successful Negotiation offered by the Michigan University or a Time Management Mastery Course where you will learn the ins and outs of time management and productivity.
Udemy has a nice feature, which you will find on its homepage, which is by getting some personalized recommendations just by answering a few questions. It also offers many different course selections for everyone from beginners up to experts, as well as support.
On the other hand, Coursera’s homepage shows you the number of partners they collaborate with and the online community from well-known universities. One of the greatest things about Coursera is that you can learn from the best. There are over 18000 courses in hundreds of topics.
ONLINE COURSES FOR FREE OR PAID COURSES
Udemy’s bestselling courses tend to be “on-sale” almost permanently. You can find some free ones on the platform and when you purchase a course through Udemy, you get lifetime access to the material. The instructors register themselves with Udemy and then create courses that fall in the area of their expertise.
At present, this platform has industry experts, educators as well as enthusiasts creating a wide range of courses.
Coursera offers over 2,000 online courses that you can audit for free. In fact, you have an option on the menu that leads you to the free courses categories. The majority of the online courses are quite similar to the courses which are being offered at universities. However, you’ll need to pay to get access to specific features such as graded assignments, mentorship, and certificates.
So if you’re thinking about studying for a master, you could also get a Master’s Degree in any subject from an accredited school.
As you can see, it depends on what would you’d like to learn and the time that you can devote to an online course every month.
TIME COMMITMENT
When you purchase a course through Udemy, you get lifetime access to that material. The courses are very self-guided and it’s up to you to complete them in your own time.
With Coursera, the online courses for free start and finish on specific dates. There’s a timeline that you will need to follow. This means that it is more what you’d expect from an online class that you would take from a university or formal institution. There are also some forums for you to speak with your coursemates and professor.
If you are quite self-motivated, you can opt for a course at Udemy, if you want to learn about something specific and in detail, the best option would be Coursera.
CONCLUSION FOR ONLINE COURSES
Udemy is great for students who want to learn a non-academic hobby or want to learn something specific. Since your course access never expires, it’s very flexible and low-commitment, allowing you to work through it at your own pace.
Udemy courses are inexpensive, to begin with, but they’re almost always further discounted as well. In advance, You can always find some online courses for free if you look for them.
Coursera’s courses are taught by some of the most well-respected professors in the world from the best universities.
Coursera concentrates on teaching as well as learning from various academic online free courses like accounting or psychology which is similar to that taught in a college program or university. So when you choose one course, you have to be dedicated as you will get limited time to complete it.
If you want to understand which platform is better, this will depend on what you intend to gain from this entire experience, but we hope we helped a little bit with your decision about which platform to use!
