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I have been looking at the new LinkedIn learning path called Software Developer and wondering what knowledge value it has. The first module has left me feeling rather deflated and wondering if it has and value at all over the general background knowledge it talks about in over-simplistic terms.

Can any one here atest to these courses technical value or is there purpose just to give a none technocal insight for 25 hours of watching?

Any opinions from those who have completed this path would be greatly appreciated.

Simon Flowers's picture
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I find that the LinkedIn course are some "nice to know" courses. They are good for introductions to things like Agile methodology and they have some very good general courses like Presenting on Video, Listening Skills, Unconcious Bias, but you are not going to develop technical skills by courses based on watching & simple quizzes... in my opinion.

I recommend having a look at Udacity.com for its courses with different flavours of software development. I did  their course on Predictive Analytics for Business which is mid-level and was very stretching.  Basically in each section you have video instruction broken up with lots of quizzes and exercises you do to practice it. E.g. in my case you are given a data set to download, perform linear regression on each factor in Alteryx (each course licences you to the necessary tools), and answer which ones are statistically significant. Then at the end of each section is a project that you do, submit, and an assessor gives you detailed feedback.

Here is an insightful review of the Into to Programming nanodegree.  Although I did a different course I have a similar experience: https://www.classcentral.com/report/review-udacity-intro-programming-nanodegree/

Their estimates in months is based on 10 hours per week and I found that to be an accurate guide to total duration. Meaning a 3 month course is 18 weeks x 10 hours = 180 hours. You can do it in a more compressed time by doing more hours per week but it is hard to do it in less total hours.

Make sure you go through their mechanisms they have for discounts. I doubt many folk are paying the full price.

nwillis's picture

First of all , my sincere apologies for not picking up on your reply sooner. I am truly sorry after so long and despite our circumstances.

Thank you for such a well spoken reply. I am never quite sure how meaningfull some people are when praising especially on ratings for  sites like Coursera or Udacity. But your words do strike a chord with me and give me confidence.

I just need to find out if there is any kind of try and buy policy.

Thabk you again and agin my apologies.