Coursera: Learn career skills 4+

Hooked on Coursera

I was feeling a bit stagnant and in a rut, so I took my first Coursera thinking maybe new ideas would help me jumpstart my brain after 3 months of quarantine-induced staying at home.I have worked from home for over 10 years now, and I am always learning new things on the job, but still, things just felt different. The first course I took was “Learning How to Learn.” It blew me away! Not only did I learn useful information, but it was incredibly enjoyable and I have been able to apply the information on the job. As soon as I finished it, I enrolled in a course on inquiry and research. One of the recommended readings, a book called “Curious” by Ian Leslie, was again enjoyable and applicable to many areas of life. I would not have come across this book had it not been for the course.I recently enrolled in “The Science of Well-Being.” Excellent. The Coursera platform is easy and convenient. I am very busy, and was able to listen to videos, read articles, etc., on my phone while I waited in line or took breaks.

No auto play makes app almost unusable

This app is in desperate need of a “hands free” mode of some sort. Lessons are cut up into tiny individual vids that can be as short as only 3 minutes, often with “assignment” or quiz pages in between, and as you go through a course you have to manually click through to the next thing again and again and again. It’s infuriating, especially when you have a bunch of short segments one after another, forcing you to click through every few minutes. One of the main reasons I use my phone instead of a computer to listen to lectures is so that I can move around doing other things. I like to listen to music or podcasts while doing chores, exercising, driving, things like that, and would love to be able to do the same with Coursera: just hit play and let knowledge stream into my ear. I can go back to see any visual components I might have missed or do assignments later; on my phone, I'm more likely to be on the go, and apps need to be able to reflect that. The way most courses are structured means you can’t just stick an hour lecture on and go jogging: no, you have to stop every few minutes to poke your phone for the next section.

To be clear, this is not a review of Coursera, which has worked hard to bring a bunch of great courses to the public. But I’ve been deeply frustrated with the app and can only pray it eventually gets a proper modern tune up.

Apple Store Subscription Not Being Acknowledged

Coursera is generally a great platform and app. I’ve used it on and off for a few years. They are getting two starts because of bad billing practices. Recently, as of May 2022, Coursera stopped recognizing my monthly subscription through the App Store and has stopped allowing me to make submissions on my course assignments and section tests. It’s stopped my ability to complete courses all together as a result. When I contacted Coursera, they said this is a software bug for ALL APPLE CUSTOMERS that their developers are trying to resolve. They then closed my help ticket and didn’t provide any resolution. I contacted them again two weeks later, and this time their customer service rep said to CANCEL MY APPLE SUBSCRIPTION, TO REQUEST A REFUND THROUGH APPLE, AND TO ENROLL THROUGH THEIR MONTHLY BILLING SYSTEM. Because I don’t want to lose my progress on this professional certification, I did exactly that. Cancelled my Apple subscription and enrolled in Coursera’s subscription. It makes me want to cancel my subscription with Coursera all together, though. This is highly suspect given the controversy of the Apple Stores 30% cut on all transactions processed through their store and developers pushing back on it. It comes off as Coursera intentionally breaking Apple users access to force their hand to enroll in Coursera’s billing system to recoup the 30% loss in revenue from the Apple store.

Developer Response ,

Hello! We sincerely apologize that you're experiencing difficulties using the app. We are are aware of this issue which is causing an extremely frustrating experience for learners like you. Although our interim solution is a bit complicated, rest assured we are actively working on resolving this issue. Thanks so much for your patience.
If there are additional details that you’d like us to share with our product teams, feel free to let us know at coursera-ios@coursera.org. We appreciate your loyalty as a Coursera learner.