In the world of online learning platforms, Udemy is a name that just pops to mind… Boasting 400,000+ courses and millions of users, it’s one of the world’s foremost educational training facilities.
But just as every enormous corporation has its fair share of issues, so does this platform. We’ll also cover key aspects in this Udemy review.
Table of Contents:
TL;DR
Why Udemy is an Ideal Learning Platform
In short, Udemy offers a wide variety of courses covering a plethora of topics - without a long signup process, needing to wait for enrollment windows, and overall or prohibitive costs.
For the most part, this is a break from traditional academia’s approach to education. It’s fast-paced, self-paced, and affordable. The site also features a big catalogue of instructors and has a wide network of students to help you get connected.
In fact, a Q2 of 2022 Yahoo Finance post claimed that Udemy, Inc. (NASDAQ:UDMY) is 41% undervalued. So it could be a high-performance stock in time to come - especially because online learning SaaS is unlikely to fall in how essential it is.
So if you’re looking for a self-study option, or even a specific course / instructor that fits your needs, Udemy is a great choice.
Finally, Udemy classes are organised into experience levels and categories, making it easy to find something that’s right for you. The site backs this up with a wide variety of tools and resources for instructors, making it a blossoming professional ecosystem.
Courses
What Sorts of Courses Does Udemy Offer? 👩🎓
The site also features categories, to help you find the type of course that’s right for you.
And its courses are in a wide variety of areas, from business to health, from front-end dev to retail fashion, to name a few. If you’re looking for a business or marketing course, or health and wellness, it has a particularly enormous number of offerings available.
Courses are accompanied by a huge library of video lessons - the site offers video lectures by subject experts. A few of the most popular Udemy courses:
- ☑️ Web Development
- ☑️ Business & Marketing
- ☑️ Finance & Accounting
- ☑️ IT & Software
- ☑️ Office Productivity
- ☑️ Personal Development
- ☑️ Lifestyle
- ☑️ Photography
- ☑️ Design
- ☑️ Fashion
Classes
What Are Udemy's Classes Like?
When you find a course that piques your interest, you’ll see the video lessons broken down into the course’s typical structure.
Each lesson consists of an in-depth video lecture and a practice assignment or project.
You’ll also come across quizzes, tests, and exams that help you review what you’ve learned and prepare you for exams.
You can also engage with other students and instructors in the class through discussions and feedback. And earn badges as you progress through the course that showcase your progress while helping you find others who are in the same position as you.
Udemy Review: Certifications
Udemy does have a bunch of certifications for you to earn. You can get certified in Marketing, Sales, Human Resources, Android app development, and even Finance and Accounting.
Just choose from a variety of certifications that are based on the level of knowledge and skills you have. These can be a great addition to your resume. There are tons of employers who are looking for certified people these days. So, certifications on Udemy can help you in getting a great job. Udemy also offers some free courses on certifications.
You can go through these free courses to get certified faster. You can also pay for certification courses on Udemy. You can scroll through a wide range of certifications and choose the most important to you.
Udemy Review: How to Use Udemy, Step-By-Step
Udemy is best suited for those who want to learn about specific topics and find the perfect course for their needs, from entering big industries to learning how to use money-saving apps, which is one of the practical types of skills we like to cover on Hosting Data. This can be especially helpful for those who want to become licensed in a specific area.
- First, search Udemy for some courses that pique your interest.
- Once you’ve found a few courses that pique your interest, select one to see if it looks like it might work for you.
- You can also browse the site to get a feel for what Udemy has to offer.
Community
What Are Udemy’s Community Features?
In the age of social trading, one of Udemy’s standout features has to be its network of instructors and students available on the platform. This provides students with a network of peers to assist them throughout the course, as well as a network of instructors to assist them once the course ends.
As a student, you can tap into the community features on Udemy to help you learn and connect with others in the program. You can discuss the lesson with your peers, ask questions and get feedback on your assignments, and earn badges as you complete the course.
As an instructor, you can use the community features to help you connect with your students and engage with them throughout the course.
You can participate in discussions and provide feedback on assignments and practice projects, and earn badges as you help your students.
PROS
CONS
Pro #1 - Enormous Library
Beyond the wide variety of topics and individual courses, Udemy also has a huge library of course packs that let you learn by doing, or through self-study. You can select from a wide range of course packs, covering a variety of topics and providing you with tons of content to learn through. Some Udemy course packs include the following:
- Business - This course pack includes 20 courses covering a variety of business topics, including marketing and sales, finance, and business strategy.
- Health - Includes 29 courses covering a huge variety of topics related to health and wellness, from fitness to nutrition, from sleep and relaxation to self-defence.
- Programming - Includes a vast array of courses on programming topics, from web development to computer science and robotics.
- Design and Creative - Includes courses on a variety of design and creative topics, including animation, graphics, and web design.
Pro #2 - Live Training
Udemy is a great option for those who are interested in live training and want to get certified.
The site offers a huge library of video lectures, helpful instructors, and a network of students to help you get certified quicker.
Udemy also offers a number of different course types, from those that cover specific topics to those that let you learn by doing. There’s a wide variety of pricing options, including monthly plans, yearly, and free plans.
You can also pay for an instructor’s course for an extended period of time. According to the plan level, students are offered a number of resources, including a certification track and forum.
Drawback - Confusing Plans
A con of Udemy is its pricing models, which many users find confusing and off-putting for new users. This can make finding classes tricky for those who are new to Udemy and want to use the site for the first time. We’ve mentioned before that the platform has a number of different plans and pricing options, from annual to monthly and free. However, navigating the best option may be a little confusing for new users.
Instructing
Becoming a Udemy Instructor
Do you want to start building your own e-Learning courses and courses for businesses? A final pro of Udemy is that it’s a great platform for professional development and becoming an instructor.
The site lets you teach anything that isn’t on their restricted list. And they provide a bunch of resources on how to produce the course. Before it gets published, it will be reviewed by the Udemy team. Once published, you’re an official Udemy instructor!
Cost to Build a Course on Udemy
It is really important for you to know whether you should go for Udemy for-profit or Udemy for-credit. You can use the platform either for-credit or for-profit. However, we recommend you to use Udemy for-credit. Why? Because Udemy offers a very generous 50% off on all fees. So, that is a very good deal. Yes, Udemy offers free courses, but because of how the business model works, most courses cost money.
The price for a course is based on a variety of factors like the quality of the instructor, the length of the course, the number of students enrolled, the demand for the course, and more. You can also choose to sign up for Udemy’s monthly subscription option, which offers a great deal. The cost of the monthly subscription varies from course-to-course. It depends on the number of students enrolled and the type of course. That said, the cost is very reasonable.
Should You Use Udemy for Your Course Building Needs?
They’re one of the best and most cost-effective. Udemy is understood as a portal into a wide range of topics. People expect to learn lots of things on the platform, ranging from how to build websites to how to start a business. There are also lots of e-commerce courses available on Udemy. You can learn all types of topics on Udemy.
You can even build courses on subjects that don’t have any available courses on Udemy. There are tons of subjects that are not on Udemy yet. So, you can create online lessons for all these subjects and teach students about them.
Profiting
Can You Make Money by Creating Udemy Courses?
This is a common question that many people have. And, luckily, Udemy offers courses on multiple platforms. What this means is that Udemy gives you one URL where you can build and host your course, and you can also sell access to your course.
There are a few ways to earn money through Udemy courses.
- ☑️ You can sign up for Udemy’s monthly subscription program and earn a monthly passive income from your Udemy course.
- ☑️ You can also choose to sell access to your Udemy course. You can sell access to your course as either an individual course or as a course bundle. If you sell access as an individual course, you earn a percentage of all the sales generated from it.
- ☑️ You can also build a Udemy app and earn money from it. Udemy apps are free to build and come with a lot of features. You can earn money by renting the use of your Udemy app to students.
- ☑️ You can also enter promotional contests to earn money.
The Sketchy Side of Udemy
Udemy is really great for learning and building your own e-Learning courses and courses for businesses.
However, it is not as clean / organised as other platforms like Blended or Lynda. And it doesn’t have the institutional backing of Coursera, which is perhaps the biggest learning platform by use and company financials. This might surprise you, but Udemy also is not a regulated platform.
There are a few scams that occur on Udemy. You must be careful about enrolling students in your course. You can enrol people in your courses, but you should make sure that they actually pay. You can deny access to people who don’t pay, but that comes with its own problems.
That is why it is important to choose your course carefully. Make sure you are aware of Udemy policies. There are certain rules that must be followed while using the platform. If you don’t follow these rules, your Udemy account can get suspended.
FAQs
Does Udemy Offer Certifications?
Yes. Udemy offers this upon the completion of your course. There are, in fact, many available that are valuable, such as becoming a Certified Business Udemy Expert. This particular award is designed to validate your knowledge and skills in key business areas. For instance, you can get certified in Marketing, Sales, or even Human Resources. You can also get specific credentials for specific fields like Accounting or Finances.
How Much Does it Cost to Build a Course on Udemy?
We have talked about this a lot. It is really important for you to know whether you should go for Udemy for-profit or Udemy for-credit. Well, Udemy is available both for-profit and for-credit. Either way, they don’t charge an upfront fee for using their service.
Which means that all fees come on the backend, according to how much your course sells. And you only get charged if you make money. Overall how much you pay is up to your specific work process.
Is Udemy Worth It?
Coursera is probably the biggest and most complete Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on the planet - with more than 97 million students and over £400 million raised in funding - and it features tons of official courses from the big academic institutes.
Some users still prefer Udemy, others say it’s for hobbyists. Udemy is overall a great option for those who want to learn about specific topics and find the perfect course without big commitments. The site also offers a wide course catalogue to choose from.
A network of instructors and students are available, to share the experience with, and help you to get certified. The platform has grown a lot over the last few years and has gone from being a website where people shared videos to being a platform with very popular and useful courses.
Now that Udemy is becoming so popular, you might be wondering if it is worth using Udemy for your course building needs. In Short: one of the best things about Udemy is that you don’t need any experience to build a great course. All you need is a good idea and a lot of determination.
