Online courses - Are they any good?

[OrangeBananaFish]

I'm looking into retraining. I can't afford to give up my full time job so thinking about enrolling on a course to do at home on an evening/weekend. However, I don't really want to part with any money if they're not very good and they don't lead to anything. After all I'm going to have to cut back on some things (luxury items) in order to afford them.

I'm looking at Learn Direct and Stonebridge, possibly others. Has anyone studied with them before? Will it help me with my career change?

It really depends on the course and the career.

As a PP has said it depends on the course and direction you want to take, it has become quite a meme on MN for a few years that you can do a few online courses onlnie and get a well paid job in IT.

Even with the gender push there is a glut of hungry grads who you will be competing against, and on MN working in IT is a very broad brush to include managing social media.

These providers focus on vocational courses so I’m guessing it’s not IT.
What field do you want to enter OP?

Again, it depends what it is.for example if something like alot of health care, then not great.

I agree with others that it depends. I did a short course related to my job last year and it was really good.

Lots of other fields are not all that suitable for online learning, though. I'm also a trained counsellor and some of the online counselling courses concern me because it's not really something you can properly train in without the interaction (in person) with other students and the tutors.

@Justanotherlurker

As a PP has said it depends on the course and direction you want to take, it has become quite a meme on MN for a few years that you can do a few online courses onlnie and get a well paid job in IT.

Even with the gender push there is a glut of hungry grads who you will be competing against, and on MN working in IT is a very broad brush to include managing social media.

On further reading most have an OH/contacts in IT who gave them lots of help.

otherwise its paid bootcamps or people in adjacent fields.

v v rare for someone on their own without instructors.

Does the course lead to a recognised qualification? If it says 'accredited by the University of X', where the University is a known UK university, then you're ok. Similarly if it's a certificate awarded by a legit professional body or exam board. But you need to avoid courses run by something that's nothing more than a fancy name and logo.

Best thing is to decide what field you want to retrain in, then find out what are the recognised training pathways and qualifications.

FutureLearn do some interesting courses with good quality resources. I’ve done quite a few and have found them better than the paid for online courses I’ve done.

Thanks for the replies. After a bit more looking into it I would need experience so would need to volunteer as well, but working in an office does not give me the time. So I'm going to have a rethink

Another one who likes FutureLearn. Some are accredited, cost money, and build to an actual qualification, others are (often free) short courses which are useful to increase knowledge/show commitment to a new area if you're trying to move into a new career/professional development. If you pay a small sum you get a certificate for these when you finish.

Futurelearn is the MOOC version of the Open University.