Course certificates worth it from online education site? - EdX, Coursera etc

[ronz91]

Any education has benefit - to leverage these online courses into getting a job, you will likely have to use that knowledge to build a portfolio (eg, for web development).

Apart from the portfolio case above, places I’ve worked at are only interested in them for people who already have degrees, and are looking to specialize or shift their area of focus (eg, computer science degree holder wants to do ML, so we will look at additional online ML/maths/stats courses as a positive on top of their degree).

I am sure that there may be some places that place value on simply
completing these courses alone, but if you want to produce a “formidable” CV, I would look at your degree options.

You mean courses that enhance your degree?

 

[cguy]

You mean courses that enhance your degree?

Yes. So, ideally those courses targeted at someone with a degree background (in the ML example, would require stats/maths/etc).

 

[ronz91]

Yes. So, ideally those courses targeted at someone with a degree background (in the ML example, would require stats/maths/etc).

so the ones outside my degree scope, I should not consider certificates for those

 

[cguy]

so the ones outside my degree scope, I should not consider certificates for those

They’re perfectly fine for self learning, or if you want to educate yourself in order to build a portfolio.

From a recognition perspective, a bunch of certificates by themselves don’t mean a whole lot. You need to show that you’ve upped the bar on your competition. Either a portfolio or a degree would do that.

 

[foulds]

I did a paid for Micromasters on edX, the course material was great and on par with the MSc degree I am working towards now. If I went to register for a masters at University of Adelaide it would also count as 25% credit. So all that sounds great on your CV, since these also have capstone projects requiring some real effort.

The downside though, don't expect any University in South Africa to recognize it. This micromasters did not help me one bit when applying for a full masters degree. But al least now my subjects are super easy cause I already know I am capable of passing masters level subjects, and much of it is a repeat just in a different format.

 

[foulds]

I did a paid for Micromasters on edX, the course material was great and on par with the MSc degree I am working towards now. If I went to register for a masters at University of Adelaide it would also count as 25% credit. So all that sounds great on your CV, since these also have capstone projects requiring some real effort.

The downside though, don't expect any University in South Africa to recognize it. This micromasters did not help me one bit when applying for a full masters degree. But al least now my subjects are super easy cause I already know I am capable of passing masters level subjects, and much of it is a repeat just in a different format.

I forgot to add. My wife is a hiring manager at a large corporate, and she said she definitely look at stuff like that, but obviously depending on seniority this must go with relevant experience, but it does count for sure.