
Ask HN: Did Online Course Lead into a Job for Anyone? - Arthanari
Did any one do online courses like<p>Coursera
Edx
Udacity<p>And then use it and get a JOB.<p>Also what about below course<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pe.gatech.edu&#x2F;online-masters-degrees&#x2F;online-master-science-analytics<p>Once i finish it what approach i should use to leverage this new qualification to secure a related job.<p>what difficulties will i face in leveraging it.
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nstart
My entire career at this point was jump-started by udacity web dev course.
Prior to that I was flitting around with developing scrapers and some basic
desktop systems. After I took that course, I went from one level to another
and am now working remotely with buffer.

As of late I've been looking back on this experience and wondering how much
I'm losing out on by not taking more courses. Hoping to change that from March
this year.

~~~
Bashmaistora
Did you take the Front-end or the Full-stack course?

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nstart
It was this one. [https://www.udacity.com/courses/web-
development](https://www.udacity.com/courses/web-development)

I did it in the early days before the tracks were introduced and where it was
still single courses

~~~
Taylor_OD
Sorry it looks like your link goes to a number of courses. Which one in
particular did you do?

Thanks.

~~~
nstart
Yikes! I shared the course directly from the udacity app. Looks like I got the
wrong link.

[https://www.udacity.com/course/web-development--
cs253](https://www.udacity.com/course/web-development--cs253)

That should take you to the right one hopefully. It's basically Steve
Huffman's course on how to build a blog. :)

~~~
Taylor_OD
Great! Thank you!

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JulesRosser
I completed a couple of courses offered by Coursera and Udacity on Android
development and managed to get a great role in a decent company a few months
later with no previous professional experience. The courses are mostly entry
level, but they gave me just enough motivation and knowledge to create my own
apps, which I feel is the real reason I was hired.

The difficulty come from having no prior professional experience, so showing
that you can design, build and ship a project in your own time really helps
you to stand out.

The only thing about the course that you linked is that its not specific to a
certain field. I would suggest that you try a couple of different courses and
find a subject / stack which really interests you, then build small but
increasingly more complex projects using what you've learnt.

I list the courses I've completed along with links to any verified
certificates on my resume, but not once have they been referenced in
interviews.. It's always the projects that make me stand out.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions you have! Also, the forums are also
great place to meet like minded people!

~~~
urahara
Is it possible to see what projects you had on your portfolio when you were
hired and what courses you took? Just to have a better idea about your story
and the possibilities.

~~~
JulesRosser
Sure, sorry for the delay. I built an extremely basic portfolio website to
show all the apps and describe them, however it's no longer online and I've
lost the assets unfortunately.

Projects Listed: Birthday Reminder App
([https://github.com/Julesssss/BirthdayReminder](https://github.com/Julesssss/BirthdayReminder))
& Podcast Player
([https://github.com/Julesssss/PodcastPlayer](https://github.com/Julesssss/PodcastPlayer))

Followed by all the apps I created as part of the courses below. They were all
basic apps, I just listed what I learnt and added a few screenshots. At the
end of the courses you'll have a nice amount of projects to show off.

Courses: [https://www.mooc-list.com/course/creative-serious-and-
playfu...](https://www.mooc-list.com/course/creative-serious-and-playful-
science-android-apps-coursera) (No longer available),
[https://www.coursera.org/learn/android-
programming](https://www.coursera.org/learn/android-programming),
[https://www.coursera.org/learn/android-
programming-2](https://www.coursera.org/learn/android-programming-2), Followed
by a couple of these beginner courses:
[https://www.udacity.com/courses/android](https://www.udacity.com/courses/android)

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drewrv
Not sure if this is the anecdote you're looking for, but my spouse did a few
online Python classes, decided she enjoys it, and enrolled in a coding
bootcamp. She's set to graduate in a couple weeks and already has an offer.

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jmportilla
I teach online courses and have had students report back to me that the course
helped them get a job or pass an interview, but it's pretty much always in
addition to their own self study and experience. an online course can
definitely help you get a job, but it alone probably won't be enough. although
more and more I see online courses or degrees that guarantee a job or your
money back, do that might be with checking out.

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lalwanivikas
Yes, for many people!

How do I know? I am actually building FirstDevJob and am interviewing such
people. I have published two interviews[0][1] with people who used
FreeCodeCamp. More are in the pipeline!

It is absolutely possible. But just don't depend on one course or site. Be
flexible and willing to learn from many different places to develop your
skills enough to land a job.

[0] [https://firstdevjob.com/stories/dan-
minshew/](https://firstdevjob.com/stories/dan-minshew/)

[1] [https://firstdevjob.com/stories/taylor-
milliman/](https://firstdevjob.com/stories/taylor-milliman/)

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sgslo
Anecdotally, I get many, many emails from people who have taken my React
courses on Udemy
([https://www.udemy.com/user/sgslo/](https://www.udemy.com/user/sgslo/)) and
go on to get jobs. They generally have some previous programming experience,
but I assume if they are taking the time to write me an email then they figure
the course helped them.

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connorl33t
I am one of those people! Thanks!

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mindcrime
I've done a lot of online classes, and I have a job. But I also have 15+ years
of experience as a developer, so it would be hard to suss out exactly which
attributes did or didn't contribute to my successful candidacy the last couple
of times I changed jobs. Subjectively, I feel like that stuff helped, but it's
hard to be sure.

