<p>I am going to be a Sophomore in High School next year and would like to challenge myself and see if I can keep up with a college course. I will probably not do it during the school year since I will be so busy, but would it be advantageous to try one of their courses? Would it be a good idea to put something like that on a college application? Also, does anyone know if the site (for lack of a better word) cares how old you are when you take their courses? Thank you so much!!</p>
<p>Pro: you are interested in the subject.</p>
<p>Con: even if you get a certificate or grade, there is no way to certify that you actually did the work.</p>
<p>Do it because you enjoy it, not for college admissions.</p>
<p>Some of the Coursera courses allow you to Certify who you are through typewriting ‘fingerprints.’ You have a distinguished way of typing and so they know it is you by how you type. Also, you have to upload your identification, etc.</p>
<p>The negative to Coursera is that most of the tests are open book tests, no time limits (or 2 hours time windows) and that it is almost impossible to impress with the certificate UNLESS you are from a foreign country and English is a second language. Then, I think, you are showing that you can do work in English. </p>
<p>If you are from the middle of nowhere and have no other access to education besides your high school, Coursera (or similar sites) may also show an additional interest in education. But I am sure it will not impress any college admissions staff if you are from a major metropolitan area in the US.</p>
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<p>I guess I still don’t see how this would prevent a student from giving their ID to someone hired to take the course for them. While this could also happen with a college course where a HS student is not well known, it seems like it would be even easier over the internet. Maybe I’m just behind the times as far as this type of technology ;).</p>
<p>First of all, why would ANYONE take a Coursera course for another person? You have to watch hours of videos which you have to run to completion while answering quiz questions during the video (the video stops every few minutes to make sure you are still paying attention and you cannot move forward without answering the question correctly) and then you have end of each week quizzes, time consuming homework which has to be uploaded, and then the Final Exam. All for NO credit!! It is not worth it for anyone to do unless they have a real interest in the subject or just have no access to the information in their area.</p>
<p>If you take an online course for free through MITware, Udemy, NovoEd, Udacity, Coursera, etc… then you should do it so that you can really communicate that skill that you learned. For example, you learned Programming from Harvard (by the way, that course alone required over 200 hours). There is NO way someone would do it for you.</p>
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<p>If a student ‘thinks’ that Coursera courses will impress colleges and has the financial means, I have heard crazier things than hiring someone to do the work for them. My point was that since there is a possibility of this happening, then colleges would likely give little, if any, weight to these courses.</p>
<p>Take coursera courses because you like to learn and are interested in the subject. You can put in on your college application if you really want to, but I wouldn’t expect it would give you any significant boost. Don’t do it because you think it’ll look impressive on an application.</p>
<p>Well, he would have to look like exactly like the person on his state/passport ID because the camera is on during the tests. That is pretty extreme. Some passports have ear photos because the ear has a certain unique-ness to it, like a fingerprint, and you cannot easily change the character of the ear.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info lagunal, that’s why I said this earlier:</p>
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<p>Thank you all! I think it came across like I was interested for my application, but I really do want to learn and am interested to see what college courses are like. Does anyone know if the courses are hard to complete? (aka would a high school student be able to handle them)</p>
<p>I’ve taken a handful of courses, and they’re fairly easy. Just watch the videos and take a quiz every week–maybe with a homework assignment or two.</p>
<p>Just try one. If you don’t do all of the quizzes or homework, it doesn’t really matter. Just watch the videos, and you should be able to get a fair bit out of them.</p>
<p>I agree with entomom.
I have had similar experience with at least two person.
If you really want, take the course in CC. We have a 3 year college in our school campus. It helped.</p>
<p>My D took a Coursera course in a subject she couldn’t fit into her regular schedule. She found it to be very (too) easy, and breezed through. I can’t imagine it would impress colleges from a rigor perspective. But it gave her an overview of a subject she wanted to know more about. She did put it on her college applications in the add’l information section. But she considered it barely worth mentioning.</p>
<p>you can always enroll and, then, if you don’t like it, you can un-enroll. For un-paying participants, it is easy to sign up for 3 or 4 classes and try each one out for a week, and then un-enroll in the ones that you don’t like.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone!! Your feedback has really helped me :)</p>