Udemy is a popular education platform that has a wide variety of courses catering to a large number of people. It has a huge set of courses for everyone. It is available in 75 languages and is accessible across the globe.
Udemy describes itself as ‘the leading global marketplace for learning and instruction. You will be surprised to know that they offer more than 200,000 courses. Pretty impressive, huh? But that doesn’t mean that Udemy is the correct platform to enhance your skills. Let’s check out our Udemy courses worth it in this in-depth review before making any assumptions.
A Quick Overview of Udemy
Udemy is an education technology company that provides an online learning platform. Three people – Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar established it in the year 2010. It is a platform where students can take up courses to improve job-related skills.
It is a popular platform for working professionals and college students to improve their technical knowledge. As of 2022, Udemy had more than 57 million students, 213,000 courses, and 74,000 instructors who teach over 75 languages. It has over 773 million course enrollments.
In addition, Udemy courses generate credit toward technical certification. Given these factors, it attracts many corporate trainers seeking to develop courses for their employees.
Main Features Of Udemy Courses
- Affordability: It is affordable for anyone willing to improve their portfolio skills to opt for better jobs. It also has a wide array of courses, which gives the student many choices to choose from. Udemy also offers close to 600 free courses on several topics ranging from learning WordPress to fitness.
- 30-day Refund Policy: The 30–Day Refund policy is a system by which people feel secure about paying for a course. It means that if an individual is not satisfied with their course, they have the option to ask for a refund of money within 30 days. This way, a beginner has some security related to the initial doubt about taking up the course.
- Lifetime Access: Any course that a student buys remains in their ‘courses’ inventory. These courses can be accessed at any point in time from this inventory. A beginner will be in no rush to complete the course within a given period. Unlike institutional courses, there is less pressure on creating results but rather on understanding the process of reaching the result.
- Completion Certificate: Udemy also provides a certificate of completion for all their paid courses. These certificates hold no intrinsic value in the professional world. On the other hand, Coursera and edX have official certifications, which may be looked upon for the same.
- Quality Control: Udemy does run a quality control of courses, but this remains very vague given the massive amount of content present on the platform. However, Udemy is not responsible for creating any form of course content for its users. The responsibility of developing courses remains with the course instructors, which can impact the quality of the courses.
Who Is Udemy For?
The platform has adopted a market strategy to attract both students and instructors. The student takes up these courses by paying the course fee. And organizations that use Udemy technology to develop specialized courses for their employees or as branded products (courses). These are the main target audience for the company. The main motive of this platform is to develop a strong consumer base.
Pros
- Wide range of courses available
- Courses created by Industry professionals
- Learn from anywhere, anytime
- Lifetime access to your courses
- Certificate of completion(for paid courses only)
Cons
- No academic credit
- Not accredited by the traditional institute
Udemy Pricing – Is It Worth It?
On opening Udemy, a student is provided with two choices. The first choice is to buy a personal plan, which is in the form of a subscription model. This is billed in the form of annual and monthly subscriptions. This model is used by other platforms, such as Skillshare. This type of model is useful when a student is constantly looking for courses to develop their skills. It can be used in an educational institute to help children develop new soft skills. This model has a huge potential for an institutional or organizational setup.
This is a good choice for people who need regular classes for a wider variety of topics. The second choice is the ‘pay as you go’ model, where students have to pay for the respective courses they want to take up. This is more popular among working professionals who do not have time to sit for one course for a long period of time.
Udemy, therefore, has a good amount of diversity in its courses for its customer base. The pricing of each course depends on a number of factors. Udemy courses often range between $ 12.99 to $ 199.99. However, the platform always has a large number of discounts that can be used by students to get courses at a cheaper rate.
Udemy Review: Our Verdict
Udemy is a good fit for a beginner who is willing to learn new skills without looking for a degree or courses affiliated with a college or university.
Udemy has a set of budget-friendly courses which can help people develop in their respective professional fields. It is a widely used platform for a variety of courses. Even though it is not an accredited institution, it can help in developing the necessary skills to grow in anyone’s career.
Unlike other companies, Udemy focuses on building a consumer base for its products. It creates a cyclic method of business. It has a wide variety of courses for students to choose from.
However, it is advisable to do thorough research about the course before jumping onto it. A good primary research will give a good idea about the instructors and the course as a whole.
It is an easy-to-use platform for beginners and provides efficient information related to each course at first glance.
Also, the courses often have a description that is more promotional than informative. This often clouds the judgment of students related to certain courses.
Conclusion
Overall, Udemy is an easy-to-use platform for both students and instructors. The issue mainly lies in providing a proper description of each course.
Currently, the information that a student gets to select a course is based on the ratings and the instructor’s profile. A good back-and-front system would help students get the course of their choice.
Apart from that, a proper certification will help students get accreditation for their skills.
Udemy does have a few issues with the way it conducts its business.
But “Are Udemy courses worth it?” is a question that may vary depending on the individual needs; if a person is looking for soft skills and casual learning, Udemy can be a perfect platform!
Comparison with Alternatives
Udemy Vs. Skillshare
- Skillshare is known to have short classes (as short as 10 minutes), while Udemy has at least 30-minute long classes. Skillshare takes a more direct approach to its lessons, but Udemy tends to take a more in-depth approach to the same.
- Udemy users need to pay for each course, while Skillshare has a monthly or annual subscription for access to all platform courses. Skillshare also has a wide variety of free courses.
- Both platforms offer courses that are made by individuals rather than companies or universities. These instructors come from a wide variety of backgrounds. These may include photographers, filmmakers, coders, web developers, business executives, and other experts.
- Skillshare premium subscription model is of value to people who want to learn new things constantly. On the other hand, people who seek specific skills would find Udemy more practical.
Udemy Vs. Coursera
- Coursera has a more academic focus on its subjects and courses. On the other hand, Udemy provides step-by-step instructions to accomplish a goal.
- While Udemy offers lifetime access to its courses, Coursera charges a one-time payment for 180 days of access.
- Coursera has features such as graded assignments, mentorship, and specialized certificates, which Udemy does not have.
- Coursera offers a deeper dive into more academic material, while Udemy tends to focus on a more practical, hands-on approach.
Udemy Vs. Pluralsight
- Udemy created a marketplace where students can buy courses with lifetime access, while Pluralsight runs on a monthly subscription fee.
- Udemy classes have a wide variety of topics ranging from music to marketing. Pluralsight is focused on development and coding modules, with selected training options and clearly defined skill paths.
- Pluralsight might be a more strategic path, while Udemy is a better choice for a casual learner.
