In this article let’s take a look at how to know select and enroll in any best course you can find on Udemy in any category and how you can also buy them.
This is the most comprehensive article you can find online regarding selecting courses on Udemy and buying them so I would recommend you to bookmark the article so that it can help you with better decisions when you are purchasing new courses on Udemy.
So without further ado let’s dive right in
Are Udemy courses and certificates valid?
It is important to know that Udemy courses are not valid because they are not accredited by any agency as all the courses you buy on Udemy are created and sold by individual instructors not universities, unlike Coursera.
Basically accreditation is a status that shows the public that a school has met and is maintaining a high level of standards set by an accrediting agency,
When you graduate, take courses and look for a job, employers take into consideration the school you attended and if it is accredited by a reliable agency.
If your degree is from an institution that has questionable accreditation, employers will question the validity of your degree and your potential as a good job candidate.
And because udemy courses are not accredited, they are not valid and they may not help you much in your professional career and job and accreditation also helps increase the credibility of skills of any student and vice versa and you will also not get any scholarship and financial aid from the platform.
Udemy is a multi-billion dollar company and it is listed on NASDAQ, it is a public company so there is no doubt that udemy is a legit and good company, not any scam or bad thing whatsoever.
Then why you should buy courses on Udemy?
Even though Udemy certificates are not really valid Because they are not accredited but there are some important advantages like,
- All the courses you buy are lifetime courses which means you do not have to purchase any subscription to renew your plans
- All the courses are frequently updated with the latest information and knowledge so you know you are getting the best knowledge
- You also get a chat room and a chance to ask questions to the lecturer and get answers and also solve your doubts
- More importantly, you can get access to thousands of courses on Udemy for a very affordable price, discounts
- Udemy courses are self-paced which means you can either download the videos or watch them whenever you have free time instead of watching them during a particular period
Because of all these reasons still I believe Udemy is definitely a good platform to buy courses and now let me walk you through how you can select the best course and enroll in it by considering a few factors.
How to select the best course on Udemy?
The platform has more than 46 million students, 175,000 courses, and 60,000 instructors teaching courses in over 75 languages and there are more than 4000 categories and topics of courses so it is very important to know how you can select the right and best course on Udemy among thousands of courses.
let me walk you through how you can select any course on Udemy and know that you are selecting the best course in that category step by step,
Let’s consider you are interested in learning programming like python or Java language, Let’s take a look at how you can select any course which is best in programming languages on Udemy in 8 easy steps,
Step 1: Search or select any topic you are interested in
Now the first step you need to do is to search for any topic, As we have already taken the example of programming then you can search for programming like Java or python topic in the search bar of the platform.
Now You will get a bunch of suggestions just like how you will get when you search for anything in Google and you can select any or you can just enter after typing the keyword in the search bar of the platform and you will get a bunch of courses lists and the second step is,
Hold on, Apart from searching in the search bar, you can also select any topic and category from the category section on the Udemy website and from there you can select the courses as shown in the image below.
Step 2: use filters to get better results
After you search and enter any topic in the search bar, you can either scroll down and remove all the courses or you can use filters to get better-personalized results for example
if you have a budget problem then you can filter down the courses which are less than 500 rupees for example and you can get all the courses that are priced less than that money and you can find many more filters as shown in the image below.
Apart from the price you also get other filters like language rating duration and level of the course, Using this option can save you a lot of time and energy scrolling down the courses and you can easily find the best course very fast.
Step 3: first check ratings and reviews of the course
Now the third step you need to do is, you should now take a look at how many ratings and reviews have been there in the course and all the ratings and reviews of the course are easily available to see right on the course listing as shown here.
Checking the ratings and reviews is a very obvious thing for many people before purchasing a course or any product in general because ratings and review will tell you whether you should buy it or not as many people make judgements of purchasing based upon other people opinion and experience of using the course or product and if many people have used the product and
rated it highly and given good and positive ratings, reviews of the course then it is more likely that you can also have good experience of using the course, it can be helpful for you as well and I would highly recommend you to avoid the courses which do not have more than 100 reviews & 4 star ratings because maybe it is not the right course for you or it is not so popular, but it is just my opinion.
Step 4: Check the course content and curriculum
And the next thing you should check is the course content and curriculum. You should check the following things like course description, what you will learn from the course, course content and lessons curriculum, structure, and also whether you get any certificate after completion of the course or not.
It is very common that most Udemy courses have lifetime access to the courses and also the courses are frequently updated, and more importantly you should check how long is the course and what is the duration of it.
Here are the screenshots of a course programming on Udemy.
Checking and having an idea of all these important details and information about the course is very important so You clearly know what you should expect from the course and you don’t regret buying it later
thinking it was not helpful for you but thankfully Udemy also offers 30-day money-back guarantee so there is nothing to worry about even if you buy a wrong course, You can ask for a refund immediately.
Step 5: Check how many students have enrolled and taken the course in the past
And the next thing you should check is how many students have enrolled & taken the course and also compare it with how many people have given the reviews, ratings to the course.
Here is the screenshot of where you can check the thing.
Obviously, if more people have enrolled, taken the course and the ratio between how many people have enrolled and given reviews, ratings are also good then it is a clear signal that maybe the course is a popular and a good investment of your money,
and the more people enrolled in the course gives a clear social proof and a good sign that it is a course it is definitely worth your money but you should probably read some of the reviews of the people before buying one and you should clearly expect that courses are actually subjective thing, some people would get great benefit, continue with the course and some others will ask for a refund.
Step 6: check the video quality of the preview of the course
Another important thing you need to check is the video quality of the preview course.
You need to watch the first video of the course which is basically the introduction of the course for the students and this is important to check to see what is the quality of the video, whether the instructor is presenting himself on the screen or giving his audio and you can get to know the teaching method of the instructor.
But it is important to note down all the courses before getting listed they will be reviewed by Udemy team with a bunch of factors including the video audio and image quality so you can definitely assume that the video quality of the courses will be better or not the best so you can have no issues of it like 720p or 1080p quality.
Step 7: check instructor’s credibility
Another important factor you need to look at is the credibility and popularity of the instructor who is teaching the course to you.
The main difference between Udemy and Coursera is that Udemy is a platform that connects individual instructors and teachers with students like you who want to learn new things from the teachers whereas Coursera is a platform that connects universities with students so I believe Coursera is a much better option compared to Udemy but it is also more expensive compared to Udemy.
But now let’s talk about Udemy, You can get to learn more about the instructor as you scroll down as you can see in the screenshot below and you should pay attention to the stats and a few numbers beside the picture of the instructor as shown in the image below to check the credibility of the instructor.
You can also search for the name of the instructor on Google, look their website and on social media platforms especially on LinkedIn to check the credibility of the instructor.
You should also keep in mind, it is free for anyone to sell courses but Udemy also reviews individual courses and instructors before allowing them to sell courses so all the instructors who sell courses on Udemy have gone through the review process of the platform and they have tested their credibility before getting selected as teachers.
Just for more fulfillment and satisfaction, you can do some additional research about the instructor on Google and LinkedIn to know more about him and his expertise on the topic so that you can get convinced of buying his course.
Step 8: Check the requirements of the course
And the last thing you should keep in mind is to check the requirements of the course and you can easily find this right on the course landing page itself.
Here is the image of the requirements of the course of learning Java and programming.
Checking the requirements of the course is important for the convenience of the customers and to learn the course better and also take the projects and problems easily.
And after spending time checking all these things if you are still confused about which course you should choose then you should probably check what are the best seller courses in that category and finalize on them.
How do I know which Udemy course is best?
The only way you can know whether the course that you are selecting is best or not is by looking at the reviews and how many students enrolled in the course, You can also judge after taking the course and whether it is helping you in real life or not, also what is the rating, reviews of the course.
Now that you have know and selected the course you want to buy let’s take a look at how you can purchase any course and also save money in the process.
How to buy courses on Udemy?
First of all I would highly recommend you to purchase the courses on Udemy only on its website not on the mobile application because the price of most courses are cheaper on its website as compared to the application as it depends upon the location language and device, it is also important to know that instructor of the course will determine the price of the course not the platform but both instructor and udemy can offer discounts on the courses at any time.
Let me walk you through step by step how you can purchase any course on the Udemy website.
Step 1: Click on buy now on any course and you will be redirected to a new page
Step 2: Create a new account using a new name and password and also log in to your account
Step 3: Now you can add your credit card or debit card details and you can choose your payment option like Paypal or UPI as shown in the image below.
Step 4: Now, you can continue your purchase, and you can get the course, This is how you can purchase any course on Udemy.
Udemy is also offering subscriptions so that you can get it instead of purchasing individual courses and get access to many courses at once but still the subscription is not available to many students and you can learn more about it here.
With that said let’s end the article.
Conclusion
These are all the things you need to know about Udemy.
Do comment down what are your thoughts about Udemy courses in the comment section below.
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