I see a lot of negative comments on this thread. Fair enough. I have seen the good, bad and ugly of Udemy. I have never tried to publish a course (thought about it). I am sure the instructor-side view of reality is less than ideal. Frankly, this is true even of massive platforms like Amazon. Ask any Amazon seller what the world looks like from their perspective. It can be horrific and surreal.
Udemy (and Amazon) do not create value by developing top-notch back-end applications for instructors and sellers. Nor do they add value by having the best process for behind the scenes participants. Their value comes from what consumers see and experience.
Yes, Udemy has a bunch of junk courses. I probably bought a few hundred courses from them. I am very careful about watching as much of the free material as possible before making a decision. Once you've seen and experienced a few courses you get a sense of how to evaluate quality.
You can also do research on the instructors outside of Udemy. For example, a while ago I decided to take Robert Feranec's Altium Designer course on Udemy. I wanted a refresher. I use the software daily but I do so many things I haven't really kept up with the latest and greatest.
Robert's course is top notch. I really enjoyed it. I will likely take some of his advanced classes off-platform.
I've also had my kids go through various courses on Udemy. From software development to handwriting, math, languages and using GIMP. All great courses. No complaints whatsoever.
One of my kids is currently going through the excellent "100 Days of Code - The Complete Python Pro Bootcamp for 2021" from App Brewery. It is amazing to see just how engaged she is.
One of my other kids is currently going through MIT's 6.00.1x on EdX while simultaneously using the "100 days of Code" course on Udemy to shore-up holes in his Python knowledge. He is doing great.
From there I plan to move them to higher level courses on either (or both) EdX and Coursera. These kids are going to finish high school with actual marketable skills that will lead to nice jobs during college (rather than the useless shit they are being fed in school...don't get me started). If it was possible to take these courses for credit they could graduate high school and obtain a BS in CS within a year. Sadly the only path I have been able to identify has a starting age requirement of 17, which I think is ridiculous. They are a couple of years younger than that and can already code circles around most first and second year university CS students. Age is irrelevant.
Anyhow, I guess I am saying that there's a lot of good on the platform for learners. You just have to be careful about evaluating courses and instructors.
Like Amazon, there is a ton of crap but also some real diamonds in the rough. The fact that you can take a $15,000 bootcamp from General Assembly OR a $15 Udemy course taught by the same bootcamp instructor teaching the exact same lesson plan... is kind of insane. The accessibility that Udemy opens uo can be truly remarkable - you just have to wade through the lower quality stuff
Udemy (and Amazon) do not create value by developing top-notch back-end applications for instructors and sellers. Nor do they add value by having the best process for behind the scenes participants. Their value comes from what consumers see and experience.
Yes, Udemy has a bunch of junk courses. I probably bought a few hundred courses from them. I am very careful about watching as much of the free material as possible before making a decision. Once you've seen and experienced a few courses you get a sense of how to evaluate quality.
You can also do research on the instructors outside of Udemy. For example, a while ago I decided to take Robert Feranec's Altium Designer course on Udemy. I wanted a refresher. I use the software daily but I do so many things I haven't really kept up with the latest and greatest.
https://home.fedevel.com/other/about-robert
Robert's course is top notch. I really enjoyed it. I will likely take some of his advanced classes off-platform.
I've also had my kids go through various courses on Udemy. From software development to handwriting, math, languages and using GIMP. All great courses. No complaints whatsoever.
One of my kids is currently going through the excellent "100 Days of Code - The Complete Python Pro Bootcamp for 2021" from App Brewery. It is amazing to see just how engaged she is.
One of my other kids is currently going through MIT's 6.00.1x on EdX while simultaneously using the "100 days of Code" course on Udemy to shore-up holes in his Python knowledge. He is doing great.
From there I plan to move them to higher level courses on either (or both) EdX and Coursera. These kids are going to finish high school with actual marketable skills that will lead to nice jobs during college (rather than the useless shit they are being fed in school...don't get me started). If it was possible to take these courses for credit they could graduate high school and obtain a BS in CS within a year. Sadly the only path I have been able to identify has a starting age requirement of 17, which I think is ridiculous. They are a couple of years younger than that and can already code circles around most first and second year university CS students. Age is irrelevant.
Anyhow, I guess I am saying that there's a lot of good on the platform for learners. You just have to be careful about evaluating courses and instructors.