Alumni Feedback

In a span of six months I meticulously used Coursera offered to me by Manipal to complete a dozen or more of courses and three specialisations which helped me understand Business and its basics from great professors of IVY League colleges and also encouraged me to finish a capstone project.

Having an Engineering degree with core specialisations meant I needed some help before I could venture into a business degree and Coursera helped me fill that gap. Now, I am pursuing an MIM degree in one of the top B-Schools in the world and I am not going blind in there without any prior knowledge and that makes me confident.

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I am very happy with the tie up between Manipal and Coursera as it opens a world of knowledge to my peers which is not constricted just to the classroom. Going through something I like at my own pace is a great way to generate interest.

Manipal has also taken up the step to actually choose an elective on Coursera which will be added as a grade to the students and I bet this will be a revolution. The whole point of an elective is to take something adventurous up and this is going to be a major contributor in keeping the students happy and encouraged.

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It has been a great learning curve.

The more I worked along with seasoned Data scientists the more I realized my lack of theoretical understanding of the science. I started looking up formal courses in data science that could help me bridge the gap in my learning. It wasn’t long since I started looking for such courses that one fine day I get an email from my University that they had initiated a strategic partnership between our University and Coursera and I was eligible to enroll in it, it was as if the universe was looking out for me. This marked my journey into the realm of MOOCs.

I now had paid subscription to the largest MOOCs library available online and I aimed to make the most of it. I began my formal education in Data science by enrolling in ‘Machine Learning by Andrew Ng’ offered by Stanford and ‘The Data Scientist’s Toolbox’ offered by Johns Hopkins University. These courses were the perfect balance between education and the application of it to solve real world problems. The courses were detailed enough to get the points across and the weekly quizzes only reinforced these points. The coding assignments were fun to do as well, it was college all over again. The best part about these courses is that they are self-paced i.e. we can take as long as required to master one topic and only then move forward. I would also like to highlight the discussion forums available in the courses, these were an amazing tool to discuss/collaborate/debate with the global student community, many a times I had put up my roadblocks from the project, with dummy data of course to avoid any legal issues, and I got pretty helpful comments and ideas to further upon.

Apart from core subjects I also explored courses which overlapped with my interests such as photography. I took the course ‘Cameras, Exposure, and Photography’ offered by Michigan State University. This course was quite comprehensive right from the very basics to advanced technical and artistic concepts, I thoroughly enjoyed taking this course. There was this another brilliant course I’d like to mention which is ‘A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment’ offered by Indian School of Business. Now this was an extremely fun course, this course draws a lot of concepts from psychology and behavioral science and strives to get a mantra for a happy life. I would recommend checking this one out for sure.

All in all this strategic partnership between our University and Coursera has been a boon to me both professionally and personally and I do hope that this partnership continues to exist and benefit our current students and alumnus.

I was curious to know , to learn , to know what makes this app or site this amazing that everyone's been talking about and our university making sure that we first years had it as free and also Manipal having a tie up with Coursera made it much more easier for us to use. I had completed 4 courses in total through Coursera within a span of say 4-5 months. Studying those courses ,getting to know more about the subject , depth , the different perspective to see and explore , everything I had got through Coursera but then I was regretting when my free trial period got over within a year , because the chance I got I couldn’t use to maximum , that’s when two weeks back I had got a mail regarding to get a free trial with a tie up of Manipal global and Coursera, I had realized that have been given another chance to grab and this time I cant waste time anymore , so I was so happy and had applied early as possible because those are limited seats only . All I have to say to everyone is I have realized it late how important this was for me but not everyone will get another second chance. One thing I can say these certificate are a big boost and when you put these in your cv and when you go for interviews and they look at your cv, they’re impressed to see that we’ve done some research and were interested in learning more .I would say Thank you to Manipal for giving me this opportunity

I cannot thank Manipal Dubai enough for the initiative they took to give my batch a chance to learn from Coursera. Initially we were feeling a bit burdened due to additional stress, but looking back at it a year later, I can only thank the institute for thinking ahead and providing such a useful tool for me. I was able to move into a senior role in another organization within the last 1 year and among the 3 courses I did from Coursera, the ‘Advanced Business Strategy’ has been one which has helped me to gain a more holistic understanding of the business environment.

It’s my strong recommendation to all the students who are being developed by Manipal that they engage in learning apt courses from Coursera’s wide database. There are courses from various professionals and experts in various fields ranging from IT to art to business to artificial intelligence. If given the access, I myself would love to pursue further courses.

I would recommend Manipal to provide Coursera to the new students also as it has a vast library of courses of different sciences. They would have to be guided at first to what all courses are there and once that’s done, they would develop a keen interest in learning. Students always have to remember that there is fierce competition in the job market and a degree alone cannot help. A wider knowledge about the field that you seek a job in and an exposure to such courses that can help you develop career wise is always an advantage.

Batool Khan

Alumnus - School of Life Science, MAHE Dubai

An opportunity of a lifetime

Standing near the admissions office with acceptance letter in my hand. My heart beating faster than ever. My mind going crazy. I stopped for a minute, calmed myself and thought what is it that has made me achieve this

Wait a minute, let me go back and tell you a story that changed my life forever.

One fine morning I was sitting by my study table and I wondered if only I could gain more knowledge and skills within my comfort zone. Then when I headed to college came a surprised as if god had heard me. Our professor informed us about Coursera.

I was shocked. This is what I wanted. For many university students, we are so busy that it’s difficult for us to take up extra classes so when I heard it was online, I grabbed the opportunity. For me it was like an opportunity of a lifetime. Just imagine being able to enroll into course provided by top colleges from around the world. It was like a dream.

For me being from the science department all we want to knowledge from wherever we can get it. So, I wasted no time in joining Coursera. And then began a journey on a lifetime. I wanted all the benefits that Coursera had to provide. At first, I thought it will be difficult because I had to balance Coursera with my college work but when I started, I was having so much fun that I didn’t even feel burdened. That’s what they say when you’re having fun, anything seems easy.

Few months later, I had completed a lot of courses from colleges like John Hopkins University, Yale, University of Pennsylvania etc. And I was satisfied. Then came the real time, I applied for a medical college and in my application form there was an area where I had to fill about my skills, extracurricular and things that I did apart from my normal college work. So, typed away about all the courses I had done through Coursera all the skills I had learned.

I then going back to where I started, it was indeed Coursera that had helped me get the acceptance letter to the university of my dreams. And now I can proudly call myself a medical student.