How Coursera brings students together with employers like Google

Free online courses in the near future will not replace the traditional ways of obtaining education. Despite this, companies providing training opportunities are constantly increasing the number of courses in order to expand the possibilities of applicants in search of new career prospects. Now one of the online course providers, Coursera, is helping its students showcase their work to some of the country's leading technology companies.

On Wednesday, Coursera announced that it is teaming up with companies such as Google, Instagram, and Shazam to develop special projects for students studying in Coursera specialties.. The specialties that Coursera introduced last year are independent smaller courses for students. They include several courses within this subject, for example, datalogy.

Students finish their studies in the specialty by completing a graduation project to show what they have learned and receive a certificate of completion. Now, some of these graduation projects are being developed and evaluated by some of the country's most respected employers.

For example, in a recent pilot program, Google required students from Mobile Cloud Computing to develop a cloud computing application from scratch. Now, some of these applications you can find the Google Play store .

Instagram, meanwhile, works withUniversity of San Diego to create a graduation project majoring in Interaction Design . Students will be given the task of completing a “new social experiment,” which will be evaluated by Mike Krieger, co-founder of Instagram and a professor at the university.

“My college interactive design courses have had a significant impact on Instagram design, and on my career as a whole ,” Mike Krieger said in a statement. “As our devices become more powerful, it’s very important that we create a generation of designers and developers who can help people all over the world use this power.”

Talent Search

Companies such as Google and Instagram are investing their time in such programs, in large part, so that companies such as Coursera, Udacity and edX train new applicants for their needs. Originally founded as free alternatives to the standard four-year education program, all MOOCs , providers of mass open online courses , have turned their attention to training in recent years, and companies are starting to pay attention to it.

In partnership with Coursera, these companies seek out talents that they would never have encountered otherwise. More than two-thirds of Coursera students live outside the United States, and one-third of them are from developing countries. And although these companies do not promise to hire Coursera graduates, only nevertheless, partnership can play an important role for them in expanding career prospects.

"This shows that companies care about these programs and are interested in the results," said Rick Levine ( Rick Levin ), who served as the rector of Yale University for 20 years before becoming CEO Coursera last year.

Technological imprint

Unlike one-off courses, Coursera specialties are not free. They cost between $ 166 and $ 490 apiece, although some students receive financial assistance. Interaction with technology companies makes Coursera's specialties more attractive, which in turn will bring the company more revenue. The imprint of a major high-tech partner will certainly help attract students, including those who are not from Silicon Valley.

It is important to note that online education diplomas begin to gain respect from employers, but they are still far from the norm. For many employers, full-time higher education is still an entry ticket, and Levin, for his part, is confident that it is unlikely that elite universities will give free online diplomas in the near future.

On the one hand, online courses are much less full-time than full-time, but prospects in this area are almost inevitable, Levin emphasizes.