Does Online Education Really Work? 10 Online Learners Share Their Experiences

Online education is increasingly being used to bridge the gaps that conventional education leaves us with. Can it really help you learn deeply and can you get a job after that? Here’s what these online learners told us. We live at a time when artificial intelligence and robots are coming to take away routine jobs. With increasing number of online education websites, students and professionals are thus turning to their laptops and smartphones to add to their skill-sets. Every employee now needs to be equipped with multiple skills to perform at an optimum level. In-demand technical skills now include Web Development, Android App Development, Python or C++ while sought-after management skills such as Business Communication, Advance Excel or Digital Marketing are also preferred. If we are not updated with the latest skills, the future won’t have a job for us! At the same time, the cost of degrees has skyrocketed, making them even more unattainable for people who cannot afford to leave the workforce to pursue a degree. As a result, some leading universities are looking for new flexible and affordable ways to offer their degrees. MOOC websites are growing in popularity as people are learning coding, data science, languages etc. to add to their resume.

With many automated software making their presence felt in various job industries, you need to perform more creatively than a machine or code.

For that, you need to update your skills, but can online courses really help you?

The main problem with online learning

Online education has one major problem even if we do not consider that a large population of India doesn’t have access to the internet and cannot read English. “Digital Learning has no doubt taken many students under its wing, with its increasing popularity. However, live and interactive digital learning aids students better and enables course completion. This is because sometimes, in pure self-learning the propensity to drop out from the course increases,” says Aditya Malik, CEO and MD of Talentedge, a website which offers live and interactive certificate and professional courses from premiere institutes.

“When you are learning online, at your own convenience, you tend to get distracted because of many other important things of your life. Live, online classes with faculty give learners the right kind encouragement, enabling them to make the most of the learning experience,” he adds.

When we learn alone, we can get bored and demotivated easily even if the course content and instruction method are good. With live and interactive learning methods, the physical classroom setting is more or less replicated which engages students better and provides motivation to complete the course. “This format helps and urges them to devote proper time to the class otherwise self-study becomes a non-committal activity where one can easily get distracted unless one is extremely self-motivated and disciplined,” says Malik. We spoke to 10 students and professionals who credit online education for their skill development and job status. Know more here:

1. Anurag Meshram

Joint Director of the Transformation Cell of the Indian Railways Coursera user Meshram completed his Master’s Degree at Cornell University in Industrial and Labor Relations, and used Coursera  to fill the gaps in his studies. “Coursera helped me get into a Master’s programme at Cornell University. Since my mathematics education ended after 10th grade, I was finding it difficult to get accepted into grad programmes. While searching for certification courses, I came across Coursera’s online education courses. Now, I am taking various courses related to my job. This year I have completed the course Data-Driven Decision Making by PwC and have learned the importance of data in decision making, which I am applying to my work at Indian Railways.”

 2. Prashant T

Financial Analysis Prodegree Imarticus learning user “Having recently graduated with a Bachelor’s degree, I was weighing my options as to the relevant career path I could take. I was particularly keen on pursuing a career in finance, but realised that in order to do so, I would have to acquire specific skills that would set me apart from other candidates.

Unfortunately, training in skills like financial modelling or valuation is not something traditional universities and educational institutions offer.

Soon, I found out about Imarticus Learning and the range of courses it offers in the field of finance. After thoroughly reading up on the courses and the potential career prospects each of them offered, I decided to enrol for the Financial Analysis Prodegree since it seemed like the best fit for me. The content of the online education course was extremely engaging, and its innovative delivery through interesting case studies and live projects made the learning experience extremely satisfactory. The course armed me with the essential knowledge and skills to accessing the emerging opportunities in the job market and achieve my goal of being a finance professional.”

3. Shivam Arora

Student of Allenhouse Business School, UP Internshala user “When I was in my second year of BBA, I went to an internship fair at DTU, Delhi. I remember how difficult it was for me to score an internship. I created my resume and started applying for internships but didn’t get selected to any, maybe because I didn’t have the right skills. After the successful completion of the trainings, I reworded my resume and added these skills to it. I began applying to internships once again — this time I got selected for 4 out of the 6 internships I had applied to. My dashboard that earlier showed ‘Not selected’ now showed ‘Hired’ or ‘In Touch’. Till date, I have successfully completed four internships and currently pursuing two.”

READ MORE : Google, Coursera launch new programme for entry-level IT jobs

Flying Car Nanodegree Student, Deep Learning and Self-Driving Cars NanodegreeGraduate Udacity user “I graduated from my first nano degree on Deep Learning last year which I had been warned is reserved for PhD students. Today I’m learning about flying cars and self-driving cars, and computer vision from the cutting edge practitioners from the industry, right from the comfort of my apartment, with a dream to work as a machine learning and computer vision practitioner someday. The platform has exposed me to people from all over the world and knowledge outside of the classroom. I’m in my final year and I hope to use it to take a year of complete self-study via online education after graduation.”  

5. Patricia Ribiero Pena

“I don’t think I would have been able to finish any kind of programme because after giving birth it was really hard. And having something in a modular structure that’s based on certificates makes the entire difference for me.

6. Gauri Jha

Homemaker, freelance writer Coursera user Jha took Learning How to Learn, a popular Coursera course with over 1 million enrolments, and found a lot of confidence that she had lost after leaving her career to be a mother. But now I have been making attempts to spring back with online education. I’m working on a few research papers with the conviction that I will succeed! Another great course that I’d enrolled in was ‘English Composition’. It helped me get over the procrastinator in me and sit down to real writing business.” “Sometime back, when I was looking to make a career shift for better growth and stability, I discovered that several lucrative opportunities were emerging in the data science and analytics segment. The area also interested me greatly, and I decided that I would get myself trained in order to pursue a career in it. However, when evaluating the courses offered by various institutes and educational platforms, I wasn’t impressed much by what was on offer. After going through Imarticus Learning’s website and checking the courses and content on offer, I was convinced that the Data Science Pro degree was the right choice for me if I wanted to progress my career. At Imarticus, I had access to an impressive faculty, which included professionals with substantial experience of working in the industry. They not only guided us through various aspects of the academics in our online education but also with our developing our overall personality to interact with recruiters and employers.”

8. Abhishek Bhattacharya

BTech student, Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology Internshala user “I had always been motivated to learn newer technological concepts and make relevant use of them, but I wasn’t familiar with any useful tutorials or trainings. After surfing the internet rigorously, I found a training module on Data Analytics. The best part of taking up this online education training was that it gave me an edge during my job application. It was a group interview and I had to stand out from my peers to get the job. The interviewer asked me why I wanted to work in IT despite being an electronics graduate. I told them that IT attracted me and that I had even built an analytics project, which was a core computer science project. I was asked to explain the project, and I did. The interviewers were satisfied and extended me a job offer.”

9. Rajani MP

Google Scholarship Recipient, Android Developer Nanodegree Student Udacity user “I am probably the oldest person in the Google Udacity Scholarship Programme. After my father’s death, I had to financially support my mother and family. I would work rigorously to provide for my mother and my own household. Less than two weeks into this new life, when I had just started getting the knack of this new development environment strongly based on community involvement and started managing my time efficiently, I was struck down with debilitating back pain that would not allow me to sit or stand or travel. I was confined to the bed for most of the day with the illness and was advised about two months of Ayurveda treatment with complete bed rest. My career again took a halt. Udacity Google Scholarship was more a like hope for restarting my career without having to compromise with the health. I can learn on the go with online education while cooking for my family’s dinner or during my bed-rest time. From a novice to an android expert, Udacity Google Scholarship gave a new meaning to my life.”

10. Cheryl Shafer

iMBA student (year two MBA student at the University of Illinois) Coursera user “I’ve wanted to get my MBA, but doing it the traditional way just wasn’t possible. My online education experience has been hands down phenomenal. The quality of education has been without comparison.” “Employers are increasingly evaluating online courses more formally for hiring and their internal training. Coursera certificates are the second most posted badges on LinkedIn which positively indicates the significance given by potential and current employers,” says Raghav Gupta, Director – India and APAC, Coursera. Coursera’s 2017 Learners Outcome Survey revealed self-reported outcomes for people who have completed online courses on Coursera platform. .In India, 46 per cent of career builders reported to have become better in their job, and 39 per cent reported to have improved their candidacy for a new job, Gupta explains. Thus, online education can truly make a difference in your academic or professional career – to being able to better understand topics to ups killing yourself and standing out from the rest of the students, online learning is the solution. (SOURCE INDIATODAY)