I know this isn’t an actual online college, but I don’t know where else to post this.
I am taking some online courses at Coursera.com. In case you don’t know, it’s a website with tons of online classes from top colleges. Some courses allow you to earn a certificate with the name of the school on it, sort of like a diploma just for that class. It’s $50.
I am taking a programming class in the R language. Personally, I don’t plan on getting a certificate because I can put the code and my projects online, and add R to my list of skills in my resume. If the employer wants to see if I can really use R, they can see the code on my website.
However, I am also taking a finance class (Intro to Finance) from Michigan-Ann Arbor. My school doesn’t have finance classes unless they are advanced ones in the Econ dept or you attend the business school. I also want to get into computational finance, so I signed up for it.
Would getting the certificate be worth it when applying for internships or jobs in the finance sector? Will they care that I took the time to learn the basics of finance on my own, and have a certificate from Ann Arbor to prove it, or just ignore it since it’s online?
I know $50 isn’t a lot, and I can definitely afford it, but I don’t like spending money if I don’t have to.
I’d like to say yes but I really don’t know. But I LOVE Coursera!!! I’m applying to two scolarships(Caroline D Brdley and jack kent cooke young scholarship-I’m in middle school) and I plan on listed my coursera classes on the application in the spring. There was this dude who won the CDB Scholarship and he took several online courses on coursera and udacity. They wrote a blog post on him and he met the Udacity team. Hope that helps!
“Will they care that…” The key here is the word “they”. There is no monolithic “they.” The certificate may not be useful, but the attitude you bring of wanting to go above and beyond, and to learn wherever you can, and to better yourself, is something that will set you apart from others in a good way. Also, the knowledge and capability that you have when you arrive will be important. So, if it were me, I would save the $50 and I would take a screen shot of the “congratulations you passed” screen, or some such. Then provide a listing on your resume, and show some sample code in your interview.
I wouldn’t list the Coursera course/certificate on your resume, but if you have genuinely done the work and acquired some skills (and especially if you have continued to practice those skills and develop them further), I would list any skills if they are applicable to the job.
