Coursera: Grow your career

I completed a course on Coursera’s website on my ipad and found it difficult to start a second course on my phone due to screen formatting not being optimised for my device. When I found out they had an app, I decided to give it a try to see if it was any better. Now, I’ll never go back! The app makes learning much easier. The courses are laid out in a way which makes a lot of sense to me, and I love that it’s easy to work through each module hands-free (the next video autoplays once one ends) or jump back in when I’ve been away (the next thing to do is highlighted at the top of the page each time, but you’re also able to skip items and complete them in your own schedule). I wish there were more courses in my fields of interest, though this isn’t at Coursera’s fault and there are still a few for me to work through. I do, however, find the app is lacking a ‘wishlist’ function. It would be very helpful for me to be able to keep a list of courses I’m interested in within the app itself. Other than that, I have no complaints with this app so far!

This app is in desperate need of a “hands free” mode of some sort. Lessons are cut up into tiny individual vids that can be as short as only 3 minutes, often with “assignment” or quiz pages in between, and as you go through a course you have to manually click through to the next thing again and again and again. It’s infuriating, especially when you have a bunch of short segments one after another, forcing you to click through every few minutes. One of the main reasons I use my phone instead of a computer to listen to lectures is so that I can move around doing other things. I like to listen to music or podcasts while doing chores, exercising, driving, things like that, and would love to be able to do the same with Coursera: just hit play and let knowledge stream into my ear. I can go back to see any visual components I might have missed or do assignments later; on my phone, I'm more likely to be on the go, and apps need to be able to reflect that. The way most courses are structured means you can’t just stick an hour lecture on and go jogging: no, you have to stop every few minutes to poke your phone for the next section. To be clear, this is not a review of Coursera, which has worked hard to bring a bunch of great courses to the public. But I’ve been deeply frustrated with the app and can only pray it eventually gets a proper modern tune up.

Coursera is generally a great platform and app. I’ve used it on and off for a few years. They are getting two starts because of bad billing practices. Recently, as of May 2022, Coursera stopped recognizing my monthly subscription through the App Store and has stopped allowing me to make submissions on my course assignments and section tests. It’s stopped my ability to complete courses all together as a result. When I contacted Coursera, they said this is a software bug for ALL APPLE CUSTOMERS that their developers are trying to resolve. They then closed my help ticket and didn’t provide any resolution. I contacted them again two weeks later, and this time their customer service rep said to CANCEL MY APPLE SUBSCRIPTION, TO REQUEST A REFUND THROUGH APPLE, AND TO ENROLL THROUGH THEIR MONTHLY BILLING SYSTEM. Because I don’t want to lose my progress on this professional certification, I did exactly that. Cancelled my Apple subscription and enrolled in Coursera’s subscription. It makes me want to cancel my subscription with Coursera all together, though. This is highly suspect given the controversy of the Apple Stores 30% cut on all transactions processed through their store and developers pushing back on it. It comes off as Coursera intentionally breaking Apple users access to force their hand to enroll in Coursera’s billing system to recoup the 30% loss in revenue from the Apple store.