For someone who did not take the traditional path to schooling, wanting to go back open access is amazing, but if the primary value of the credential is correlated with selectivity, I can’t help but feel off. It effectively feels like pay to play and to the average person who hasn’t heard of the school/program, does it signal more than a for-profit. I also couldn’t be sure, not being familiar with how UK programs are generally structured, but a lot of the programs looks extremely superficial, and wide, like what you would get from a low tier AS program at a bad community college. This is kinda the same feeling I had with certain degree options through Coursera as well.
The only time a certificate would be useful to me would be if I wanted to change career. Other than that, I just want the knowledge, and Coursera lets me blast through courses to get top quality information. I love it.
Flexible course curriculum but it seems they give you the stamp you need to get to the next level, and perhaps more importantly, the flexibility to do it at your own pace. It may be that as you say you can pick your curriculum to be shallow, I don’t know the details I’m afraid.
I think a lot of roles just care about box-ticking; degree in CS or related STEM field. The recruiter doesn’t care where from if you tick the box. In some sense it’s BS, and Coursera may be the cheapest way to hack the system here.
My friend found it really rewarding and empowering to get his degree even though he took a detour to get it, so i can at least provide a third-hand vouching for the quality of OU from an educational content perspective, as well as passing the bar for credentialism too.
Caveat Emptor, I don’t have any positive or negative testimonials on Coursera for getting a job. And I’d actually suggest in software that you can get into the field without a degree much more easily than other STEM fields. But if you’re not in a tech hub then the credential might help you to get a foot in the door if you are otherwise struggling to see a way to do so.
I also did a physics undergrad (in person) and can attest that most of the classes these days are theory-based. Lots of maths; Quantum Mechanics is all maths, Nuclear/Particle is all theoretical/computational (though at the point of masters/PhD you would get to fire lasers at real things, I never did though). I did have one experimental lab class where we practiced measurements of various sorts, but that was maybe 10-20% of the first couple years. You could take different electives that emphasize experimental physics more, but the theory is plenty deep to keep you busy without compromising. So if you want to learn quantum physics or stellar nuclear physics for example you don’t need a lab at all.
* economy of scale means it’s cheaper for the same quality
* egalitarian access means you don’t need X gpa to get the top classes
* online means the TAM / impact is way bigger
* lack of actual degree for most courses means you are spending your dollars on actual learning and not merely paying to signal middle-class membership
I’m not necessarily buying in to all of these but I think there’s clearly enough to justify the business on its surface. Haven’t dug into the biz metrics though.
Anecdotally a friend did Open University which is probably equivalent to the full degrees offered at Coursera, but less convenient. They spent years grinding out a degree after work. They are a data scientist now. So this path is valuable and increases access to (I’d argue overly) credentialed jobs.