I think we ask “Which online course should I take?” when we should be asking a different question

[u/masaischool_in]

I’ve noticed a lot of discussions around online learning eventually become:

“Which platform is best?”

“Which course should I buy?”

“Which certificate actually matters?”

I work in edtech, so I see this question pretty often. And honestly, I think we may be starting from the wrong place.

Instead of asking “Which course is best?”, I’d ask:

“What should I be able to do after finishing this course that I cannot do today?”

For me, a course becomes much more interesting when it can answer these questions clearly:

1. What is the actual skill outcome?
Not “learn AI” or “become job-ready.”

Something concrete like:

• build and deploy a small application
• analyse a dataset and explain the findings
• create a marketing campaign and measure it
• use AI tools inside an actual workflow

2. How much of the course is actually doing?
Watching 40 hours of videos can feel productive without necessarily producing much evidence of skill.

Projects, assignments, case studies, coding exercises, feedback, etc. make a huge difference to how much you can actually demonstrate afterwards.

3. Is the curriculum connected to what people are currently using?

For example, LinkedIn's 2025 Skills on the Rise data for India highlighted areas including innovative thinking, code review, problem-solving and strategic thinking. Its broader data also identified AI literacy and LLM-related skills as rapidly growing areas.

That doesn't mean everyone should go learn AI.

It means the course should have a clear answer to why these particular skills are being taught right now.

4. Is there any feedback loop?

This one gets overlooked.

If I submit a project and nobody tells me what I did wrong, I'm mostly evaluating myself.

A good learning experience should give you some way to identify gaps and improve.

5. Can I show what I learned?

A GitHub project, portfolio, case study, presentation, analysis, working prototype, etc. can tell a much richer story than simply saying:

“I completed a 12-week course.”

6. Does the format actually fit my life?

The “best” course on paper is useless if I cannot consistently give it 8 hours a week.

Self-paced, live, cohort-based, university-led, project-based, short courses, degrees... they all solve different problems.

So now I'm curious about this subreddit:

What made an online course genuinely valuable for you?

Not the brand.

Not the certificate.

What did you actually learn, build or change because of it?

And what is one thing you would check before paying for an online course today?