I started a Coursera course on probability recently actually and gave up after the second week. The course material and all was great but what killed me was, as this post mentions, was having to pay to get the quizzes graded. I wasn’t in the course for a certificate, I just wanted to learn some probability. But without getting the quizzes scored I was unable to determine if I was learning anything. So I just bought a book with solutions to the exercises and am learning with that.
It’s a bit apples and oranges, because the course I was taking was about Probability and Stats and I am just using a probability book (because I had it already). However, that being said, the book costs $85 on Amazon:
And the cost of the course was 75 euros or so, so pretty close. However, this course was an intro course so does not cover as much as the book will. If I were to take all five courses in the concentration coursera has for prob & stats, it is about 500 euros, IIRC. So a book is definitely less expensive and helpful than that IF you don’t care about getting the certificate, IMO.
I started a Coursera course on probability recently actually and gave up after the second week. The course material and all was great but what killed me was, as this post mentions, was having to pay to get the quizzes graded. I wasn’t in the course for a certificate, I just wanted to learn some probability. But without getting the quizzes scored I was unable to determine if I was learning anything. So I just bought a book with solutions to the exercises and am learning with that.
If you don’t mind me asking, how much did the book cost, compared to getting the quizzes graded on Coursera?
It’s a bit apples and oranges, because the course I was taking was about Probability and Stats and I am just using a probability book (because I had it already). However, that being said, the book costs $85 on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Probability-Models-Eleventh-Sheldon/dp/0124079482/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465724699&sr=8-1&keywords=probability+model
And the cost of the course was 75 euros or so, so pretty close. However, this course was an intro course so does not cover as much as the book will. If I were to take all five courses in the concentration coursera has for prob & stats, it is about 500 euros, IIRC. So a book is definitely less expensive and helpful than that IF you don’t care about getting the certificate, IMO.