This MOOC ended almost 3 months ago, and it took them super long to grade it, but they did.
I got 97.8%, mostly because just by following the videos and retyping the code in the correct files, one could get 100% for the assignments, and the quizzes were not particularly hard either. The lack of an exam also made this a bit easier for me.
I do see why Coursera is now phasing out free certificates. On the other hand, it’s not like the MOOC would have been harder if I had paid for a Verified Certificate. I still did the work.
While I doubt that I will carry on with Ruby on Rails (not really my scene), the other concepts I learned while trying to do this MOOC is far more valuable to me. These include:
- Learning to use version control correctly (Github, BitBucket)
- Using PaaS (Heroku, Nitrous.io, Google App Engine)
- The difference between developing a local application vs web application
- Security concepts, like when to use SSH etc
As part of a team that provides enterprise GIS solutions, I’m very eager to learn more about networking and the enterprise part, so this MOOC kickstarted me into a series of MOOCs around networking. First up is Princeton’s offering.