COURSERA & QWIKLABS stunned and humbled me...
Before I experience with both coursera and qwiklabs, I would assume that they are just like many online course portals like udemy whereby anyone from anywhere can just sign on and teach. It can get quite messy and one can easily got loss in the course search maze and worst still, the quality may not be to our likings too though there is a handful of good course contents on udemy too.
Recently, I was selected and was given a chance to access Google curated courses on both coursera and qwiklabs. You know what? I am totally blown away by the quality of the course contents augmented by the ease of navigating of the coursera's user interface. Well, some of you may just brush it off and comment that "It is a Google course. Of course, the content must be good!". But how many times have we stumbled upon disjointed and poorly documented online course even from many reputed companies, you know what I mean.
The thing that impresses me the most about Google course on coursera is the humility, openness and motivational force of many Googlers sharing their humble beginning and many started with no formal college education; But through their determination and strong grit, many of them found their career paths with Google.
Another takeaway which will etch on my memory is the okay to fail and growth mindset advocated by Google. I bet most of us would lean on the sure bet or safer ways in our decision making process whether it is a personal or professional endeavour. May be it is because of such risk-taking culture permeated throughout Google that it is continuously growing, learning, and adapting.
As most Google courses I chose to take up with coursera is technical in nature and I am still working on it, I do not have time to explore other courses on coursera yet. I am sure there will be a lot of hidden gems. Some of the features I like about coursera is:
- Progress tracking
- Summary of the course
- check in and check out
- Maximum tries for quiz and if the threshold is reached, you will have to wait till the next day
For qwiklabs, the options and instructions for accessing the Windows and Linux Virtual Machines labs are very well documented and even a novice will not be lost. Most of the common clients and tools are being included in qwiklabs instruction for lab access: Windows Operating System, Mac OS X, PuTTY, SSH and Microsoft Remote Desktop.
Flashing back about my Google Cloud certification journey, I reckon that if I have signed up with coursera and qwiklabs as part of my learning process, it is very likely that I can cut short my many months of preparation time for my Google Cloud - Associate Cloud Engineer and Professional Cloud Architect.