Udemy is a global marketplace for learning and teaching online where students are mastering new skills and achieving their goals by learning from an extensive library of over 55,000 courses taught by expert instructors.
The Udemy platform allows anyone to teach. The course does need to pass a review by the Udemy team but you still need to conduct your own checks to make sure that the course:
- Meets your standards
- Covers the material you are interested in
- Is in a style that suits your way of learning
So how do you find the courses that are great for you?
- Intro Video: Watch the intro video: This is the pitch from the author and it should also give you a good insight into both the style and the content of the course.
- Curriculum: Read the ‘Course Curriculum’ to make sure it covers what you want to learn.
- Pre-Requisites: Read the ‘Course Requirements’ & ‘Target Audience’ to make sure you have the pre-requisite skills & equipment (many courses on Udemy are designed to take you from beginner to ‘pro’ and most don’t require special equipment)
- Free Preview Lectures: You can preview some of the lectures from the main art of the course (Look at the Curriculum and see the lectures with the link “Preview” next to them). This is great for checking if you like the teacher’s style.
- Reviews on Udemy: Check out the reviews on Udemy, although take them with a pinch of salt, especially the one liner ‘This is the best course ever’ 5 star reviews.
- Reviews on External Sites: Check out reviews of the course on other sites for a more rounded viewpoint.
- Author Reviews: If the course is new, check out the reviews of the author’s other courses.
- Try it! – Udemy has a 30 day money day back guarantee. So you can buy the course and if, after the first few lectures you feel that it’s not a good fit for you, you can request a full refund. Note that this is a ‘good faith’ arrangement. Users that take the entire course and then request a refund may find that it is denied, especially if they’ve done that repeatedly.
