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Comment by bschne | Hacker News Reader

Coursera has definitely aggregated some great content, but the evaluations on most of the courses if you go for the certificate are ridiculous — it works well for auto-graded programming assignments, but so much of the other stuff is peer-graded with lots of spammy submissions, so it's barely more meaningful than e.g. a microsoft certification.

Does anyone have some experiences with their degree programmes? Curious to hear if these are more promising...

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Based on my experience in a couple courses a while back, the programming auto-graders were pretty good. Not perfect, your code could presumably be a total tire fire but so long as it produced the right answer it was OK--which is admittedly a good part of the battle.

But, yeah, every peer-reviewed assignment and use of discussion board was awful. This isn't a university where everyone is more or less on at least roughly the same footing with respect to language, educational level, and commitment. At least company certs have to maintain some quality floor if they're going to have some value for employers and therefore of interest to would-be employees. As soon as they become viewed as diploma mill trash they're done.

In their defense, I went to a large state university, and some classes used automated grading as part of the assignment grade. One class was basically just one large group project, a large portion of my grade there was based on peer feedback. The most detailed code review I got was at an internship. But I do agree, I'd say in-person and online degrees should both be higher quality than a MOOC.

I'm enrolled in CU Boulder's MSEE program that's administered through Coursera. It's decent, definitely not as good as in person instruction (for me at least), but is probably a good deal for people who are ok being largely self-taught/directed and only need some light help from TAs if necessary. The content seems pretty good and up-to-date so far as I can tell. The price competitiveness and flexibility is ultimately what led me to give it a shot. I'm also doing it to complement an existing career, not bet my future on it, so the downsides for me are somewhat negligible vs someone with no work experience who might be doing the program. So take that as you will...

The peer reviews are definitely better in the degree program, but there's always a few people not even trying, of course. Nothing that's really impacted my own work.

I looked at that program, but I was very cautious. It’s an open program, which means you don’t even have have to have an undergrad at all, albeit you do need to have an understanding of the prerequisites. While personally, I find this and the price point absolutely amazing, I have to wonder what that means for the value of the credential obtained. On paper it’s basically paying for a degree and an MS-EE at that. From engineers I’ve talked to, they don’t even trust accredited online programs.

CU Boulder advertises the resulting degree as indistinguishable from their on-campus program from a records perspective (you're even invited to the graduation ceremony afaik). How much truth there will be to this, I've yet to see.

I don’t necessarily doubt them, but it still just feel off. Why can’t just anyone enter their on-campus program and prove themselves the same way? If they had some more courses focused in certain areas I’d take a more serious look at it though.

Agree on the peer reviewing in non-degree courses. I never got spammy-looking reviews, but I did get ridiculous reviews where one reviewer would grade high, another low and a third make no effort and just say "pass". It was clear that many had no clue what they were talking about or made zero effort. No way I would settle for that in a paid course.

I'd be inclined to trust the degree programs, but can't speak from personal experience. There are reputable universities putting their names on the line and giving out degrees. They're also cheaper than in-person degrees but way more expensive than the specialization certificates. There is clearly effort there and I'm sure you get real TAs grading your work and giving feedback, not peers, and the classmates are people who qualified to get into a MS program, not literally anyone who clicked a sign up button. UIUC and Penn aren't going to give you a MS if you didn't earn it.

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