Interesting for those of you not applying this year, or just looking to get some good knowledge. Wharton is offering what amounts to their required curriculum for first year MBA students through Coursera for free.
Today, we’re excited to announce the addition of THE WHARTON MBA FOUNDATION SERIES, offered by the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, into Coursera’s course catalog.Whether you’re looking to explore accounting or build a foundation for future academic or career pursuits, these courses, taught by faculty from one of the top business schools in the world, can provide you with the fundamentals of business and management.
The series kicks off with An Introduction to Financial Accounting on September 16th, followed by introductory courses on Operations Management, Marketing, and corporate finance through the fall. Join the more than 695,000 students from all around in the world who have already enrolled in a Wharton course, as well as explore business-related offerings from our other university partners.
As with other Coursera offerings, you can take all of the courses in the series for free. If you’re especially interested in putting them on your resume, you can earn a Verified Certificate that shows you’ve mastered each course’s material.
Check out the four exciting courses below. We look forward to seeing you in class this semester!
Thanks for sharing! I am signing up for sure. +SB!
John Doe 134 Main Street
Undergraduate University BSBA Cumulative GPA: 3.3
The Wharton School of Business MBA - Verified Certificate
Is it just me or do these courses look like undergraduate courses? Do all MBA programs have these intro courses for the student who may not have business backgrounds? Or are these not the same courses offered in the legitimate MBA program?
Precisely why MBA programs are a cake walk, and you learn close to nothing. It's a $250k networking seminar.
Exactly as BTbanker said. MBA's are for networking not for a study experience.
"you learn close to nothing."
Pretty ridiculous hyperbole.
In most MBA programs you can exempt out of core courses (e.g. Statistics, Accounting, Finance, or even Marketing/Operations type) if you have previous coursework/experience.
If I understand correctly, you need to sign up for the "Signature Track" in order to be certified?
I don't know if the certification carries any weight, to be honest, besides proof that you did the courses..
Free online courses are obviously a good way to gain knowledge for knowledge sake. There is of course no signaling value, so it won't help in terms of professional advancement.
I took the first offering of Intro to Operations Management on Coursera last year. It was a good course, and although I highly recommend it, I suspect it is a heavily watered down version of the real MBA course at Wharton. As mbavsmfin implied, these courses will not help your career at all beyond just giving you knowledge.
The signature track is something Coursera started recently to bring in revenue. You can take the class for free and get a regular certificate, or you can pay to enroll in signature track and get a "verified certificate." Coursera verifies your identity by your typing patterns, but I do not have any actual experience with the signature track option. Since I only see these courses as a way to learn and not something resume-worthy, the signature track option makes no sense to me.
This post is spot on.
I also signed up for the Operations Management course when it first launched on Coursera, and tried watching the first lecture, which was actually quite well done. The technology allowed near seamless integration of multiple choice questions as they went along to make sure you were watching and paying attention. It was certainly superior to the e-learnings that my firm has developed.
However, I didn't end up doing any more of the course past the first lecture because I figured my somewhat limited time might be better served studying for the next level of the CFA exam, a designation that actually carries some weight--as opposed to a Coursera certificate.
That said, it is great that Wharton is putting these courses on Coursera and I think a lot of people will benefit from them--particularly those who want to change fields and may not be able to afford the time or money to go back to school, but want a taste of intro business courses.
Awesome post, thanks! SB'd.
I think Coursea online classes might just be a standard intro courses to biz, but there is value for people that haven't learned finance during undergrad I guess
Would this certificate hold any value on a high school resume, or help a college student looking to transfer to a better university?
As a finance major, will the finance course hold any significance on my resume?
I would not put Coursera on the Resume.
Unless you can get your university to accept the course as a transfer.
I wouldn't list this on your resume. Somewhere on another thread I asked Betsy Masser about how strong this would look for MBA apps in comparison to taking an actual credited course online, and she definitely recommended the latter over coursera.
coursera has zero credibility with schools and employers. If you want to improve your chances for MBA apps, take an actual online course from say berkeley or ucla extension and get A's.
Do you think it matters where you take it? I was considering cheaper options like a local community college.
It's a good talking point to demonstrate an ongoing pursuit of knowledge and taking the initiative to develop yourself. Especially if you can spin it well.
MOOCs are a relatively new medium and there is a lot of confusion about them. I have had a good amount of experience with MOOCs on all of the main platforms, so I will provide a not-so-brief overview, and hopefully some of you will find it informative.
To me, Salman Khan, creator of the non-profit Khan Academy in 2006, is one of the pioneers in online learning. Khan Academy has thousands of free online lectures in subjects including macroeconomics, microeconomics, statistics, probability, finance, and even art history. They are free, and they symbolize true knowledge for knowledge sake. There are no credentials to be gained, only knowledge.
Coursera is a for-profit educational company, and it launched with venture capital funding in 2012. Originally, there were four partner schools: Stanford, Princeton, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania. Currently, there are over 80 partner schools, and the list is growing. As a for-profit company, Coursera recently started its “signature track” option for a fee, and students can receive a “verified certificate.” I have only received the free certificates for the courses I have taken, and at the bottom of each certificate there is a disclaimer. For example, the bottom of the certificate I received for Introduction to Operations Management reads:
“PLEASE NOTE: THIS ONLINE OFFERING DOES NOT REFLECT THE ENTIRE CURRICULUM OFFERED TO STUDENTS ENROLLED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. THIS STATEMENT DOES NOT AFFIRM THAT THIS STUDENT WAS ENROLLED AS A STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA IN ANY WAY. IT DOES NOT CONFER A UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA GRADE; IT DOES NOT CONFER UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA CREDIT; IT DOES NOT CONFER A UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA DEGREE; AND IT DOES NOT VERIFY THE IDENTITY OF THE STUDENT.”
I would think that the verified certificate would have a similar disclaimer except for just the last phrase.
Udacity is another for-profit educational company that started around the same time as Coursera. There are fewer courses available on Udacity and fewer partner schools, however, some of the affiliated partner schools will actually grant school credit for their courses. I know that San Jose State University, for example, offers this option for its courses on Udacity. Udacity has also partnered with Pearson VUE to allow students to take proctored exams (for a fee of course) in an effort to add credibility to its online courses.
EdX started later in 2012, after Coursera and Udacity, and it was founded by MIT and Harvard. Currently there are about 30 partner schools, including UC Berkeley, Boston University, and Caltech. Most course offerings are in the sciences, but they are expanding.
The big 3, so to speak, of Coursera, Udacity, and edX all offer certificates of completion, but there is no common standard. Some courses give percentage grades, while others are just pass/fail. Some courses will not give a certificate at all (for example, any course affiliated with Princeton will not issue a certificate). Some courses are very challenging, while others are ridiculously easy. One course on Coursera even seemed to me to be a marketing ploy to get students to sign up for the partner school’s online certificate program for thousands of dollars.
From an employer’s perspective, it is impossible to know how much weight to give to these courses, so they end up giving them no weight. From a school admissions perspective, I think they can carry minimal weight in showing initiative and intellectual curiosity under the right circumstances (e.g. a career changer). However, this technology has a long way to go before it is anywhere near the value of a traditional college course and transcript.
There are many more platforms that I have not covered, including Stanford/MIT Venture Lab, MIT OpenCourseWare, NovoEd, and others. For most people on WSO, however, Coursera will offer the most relevant MOOCs in finance and business.
I believe GSB has been doing a Finance course for a while as well. On their own platform however.
Ah cool, can you post a link?
Voluptas at dolorem et et cupiditate repellat et consequuntur. Aliquam beatae illum qui laborum. Qui velit eos inventore mollitia. Et corporis odit aut ea. Esse minima quae nemo. Aut quaerat rerum est iusto. Repudiandae cupiditate ullam nulla accusamus.
Assumenda cupiditate non laudantium provident. Voluptatum consequuntur nihil et deleniti molestiae reprehenderit sed dolores. Laborum voluptas facere qui minima.
Sed ut nulla non sed maxime quaerat id error. Et eum in blanditiis quo eaque. Sit vel consequatur et voluptas assumenda modi.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Totam facere odio quo odio ut dolorum quaerat ea. Laborum dolorum ex et sunt autem. Consequuntur expedita ullam voluptate voluptatem dolore.