MOOCs! Are they worth your effort, time and money?

Massive Open Online Course.. MOOCs!

The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine who owns his own Stock Market Company and runs few Non-profit Organizations.. He insisted, "I would want you to deliver an online session on MOOCs and how should one approach them. Also you should cover how to properly utilize MOOCs in this crowded environment where everyone is doing Certifications."

When he wanted me to overall address the above, I understood that he wanted me to cover the following questions:

"What are the major benefits of MOOCs and if at all they are valued well in terms of recognition by a company's recruiter or when you go in for an interview for your higher education?"

"What values does it add to your Profile and your Resume?"

"Does it accentuate your LinkedIn Profile?"

"Does it help people who are planning to shift Job roles?"

I happen to have done a decent number of MOOCs from Coursera and edX(and I am currently pursuing few more MOOCs online). And I realized that I have been sharing my opinion regarding these regular directly or indirectly to many friends of mine and connections on LinkedIn.

Therefore, I wanted to share my experiences with anyone on LinkedIn who might be puzzled with the decisions of whether MOOCs are worth it at all.

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is a free Web-based distance learning program that is designed for the participation of large numbers of geographically dispersed students. A MOOC may be patterned on a college or university course or may be less structured.

The above certificate is a combined 5 Courses Completion Certificate from IE Business School, Spain via Coursera Platform, which covered:

1. Brand and Product Management
2. Pricing Strategy
3. Channel Management and Retailing
4. Integrated Marketing Communications: Advertising, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, and more
5. Marketing Mix Implementation Capstone

Starting with a background check, by education, I am a B.Tech from Manipal Institute of Technology. Professionally, I have now worked over 2 years in Sales across industries like Education, IT and Behavioral Training, Hospitality and Real Estate.

Coming to the WHY? of this 5 Course Specialization Bundle, I had 3 main reasons:

1. I was always interested in Marketing and Brands, but I had very less exposure to the Marketing field mostly because I was always busy in selling.
2. I wanted to educate myself so that I could take up Marketing freelance projects so that I could add to my field knowledge, and eventually also accentuate my Resume.
3. I had been planning to do my Masters in Marketing/Business. And I think having some knowledge will help me understand terminologies, theories, strategies, case studies better than what I could have understood if I had no knowledge at all.

Prior to this course, back in 2018, I had done my first MOOC, from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, via edX platform on "Marketing Management".

Again, coming back to WHY? of this MOOC:

1. I was relatively a fresher at that point of time, and I was doing pretty well as a newbie and wanted to have a more diverse profile in terms of Sales and Marketing as a whole.
2. I had initiated, presented facts and figures and got the approval from the President of my department to launch a LinkedIn Sponsored Content Campaign in pulling in more customers to our Client Pool. This was the very first time the department had considered spending capital for Marketing.
3. Considering I was from engineering educational background, I wanted a good pointer on my resume to deliver my message to my future recruiters that I have a variety in knowledge and am ready to help the teams I work with, with surround knowledge wherever it might seem essential.

Hoping that by now you have a fair understanding of what my agendas have been in terms of improving my knowledge base via MOOCs, I would now want to talk about for which situations do MOOCs work and also for which situations MOOCs do NOT add much value.

Starting with who should NOT pursue what type of MOOCs:

1. If you are currently working in a particular field, and are planning to jump to a completely new role. In this case, I would suggest you get a formal education or training for the change.
2. If you are planning for a Higher education in the same field, you will definitely benefit from the knowledge the MOOC can potentially offer. But, you might not want to go for the expensive ones and rather go for a course which is cheaper. Yes, the quality of content might be slightly lesser than the significantly expensive ones, but optimally should help with the lesser expensive certifications.
3. Tip: You could also go for the non-paid versions of the expensive courses. Here the content is going to be the same high quality material, but you lose out on the certificates. Alternately, in the cheaper MOOCs, you get the certificates on completion(which is a proof of you knowledge and might help to show the recruiter as a proof; you still have to show credibility though), but you miss out on the Top faculties at times.

Now, coming to WHO should GO for WHAT type of MOOCs:

1. You are currently working in a project and you want to know and learn about what do your counterparts essentially do who are from different departments.

Example: There is a new project of Business Expansion into a new region. You work for the sales team, and would want to have more knowledge how the Operations team functions so that you can coordinate better and work more effectively. This works both ways.

2. You want to shift fields from what to are currently working in.

Example: You work for the Sales team and want to move gradually into marketing, or vice versa. This is just one case. It could be similarly done for IT professionals who want to SHIFT to another expertise.

3. You are a manager and have to coordinate with direct or indirect reportees who takes care of a secondary(or support) function for your main team.

Example: You are a Operations team lead and you have a finance executive who helps you and your team with the commercials and financial details of the operations budget, etc.

4. You are a freelancer and want to understand what your client really expects from you.

Example: I am currently working on a project for a promising Food and Beverage start-up and I am trying to help them in Designing their Marketing Mix starting from Market analysis and identification to competitor study and pricing to distribution channel planning. I have no prior experience in pure marketing, but my 2 years sales roles and the Marketing Specialization MOOC helps me in having a better idea and working on the project.

The above pointers are only few which I have personally observed with and around me.

So here was my say on how MOOCs can help someone IMPROVE and REFORM one's profile and career plans. Hope I could throw some light amidst the crowded space of opinion regarding if MOOCs help in adding to your knowledge and profile.

Please feel free to connect to me for more knowledge sharing or if you have any queries on MOOCs. I am no expert, but can definitely have a discussion and hopefully we can both benefit out of the conversation.

Also, do comment, like and share the article with your friends or colleagues who are also under this confusion about MOOCs amidst this lockdown.

Happy Learning! Happy Growing! :D

Stay home, Stay safe :)

My LinkedIn profile: Avinash Kumar on LinkedIn

Disclaimer: This is only my experience and opinion as a MOOCs student and I am not having any business partnerships with any of the mentioned courses or platforms.