Our Short Udemy Review

  • Nov 12
Our Short Udemy Review

The Evolution of Learning

The way we, as humans, learn seems constantly in flux. Not long ago, it was common for schoolrooms to host kindergartners through twelfth-graders alike. Even in the 1950s, there existed singular schoolrooms for children of all ages. Now, children typically grow up with different teachers each year. And the evolution of technology has spurred a simultaneous shift in the educational process. So, learning looks quite different than it did even two decades ago. What once might only be found in textbooks can now be easily accessed online. Where instructors in classrooms were once the main sages of education, a transition toward online platforms has taken place. One such site, Udemy, is a catch-all provider offering courses that range from topics like music to business. So, we wanted to take a moment and tell you our thoughts through a Udemy review.

Udemy Review – The Good and the Bad

Udemy boasts a course portfolio of at least 40,000 lessons, many of which take a multiplicity of hours to complete. The potential to learn about a host of topics appears nearly boundless. But even with the massive ledger of courses Udemy offers, there’s a negative side as well. At least for those who are looking to get something tangible out of their learning.

In researching the course provider, it didn’t take much digging to uncover that Udemy offers no sort of authentic certification. At most, learners receive a certificate of completion after finishing a course, but not an official document of any sort. So, if you wanted to earn an MBA, Udemy wouldn’t be the site to go to. Even if you can learn valuable, and even vital, business principles from instructors there.

To make matters a bit more complicated, the information offered on Udemy seems to undergo a very lax authentication process. According to Udemy’s Course Quality Checklist, the main restraints on course creation center around structure, not content. So, in that sense, the quality of the material seems questionable at best.

While neither of the previously-mentioned “cons” disqualify Udemy as a viable educational provider, they do put a potential damper on the ability to learn well. In fact, one of the main critiques I saw from various reviews of the site was that the instructors are nearly unreachable, either by email or phone. Thus, while there are teachers of a sort, the apparent lack of communicability seem to push it into the realm of self-education.

Person taking notes while performing an Udemy review

Knowledge for Its Own Sake

But an important question remains: is “self-education” such a bad thing?

Even if the educational process on Udemy must be taken with a fine grain of salt, there seems to be value in the platform, even if only as a repository for vast knowledge. In a basic sense, Udemy is an educational library where you can garner a host of opinions, observations, facts, and knowledge.

If you’re the type of person who enjoys continuing education for its own sake, Udemy has a course for you. However, if you’re looking to get something tangible from your online learning, Udemy won’t be the place to find it.

If you enjoyed our short Udemy review, you should also consider reading about VTR’s approach to distance learning and the benefits of story-based education.


Article written by Braden Norwood

Last updated February 22, 2023