Coursera, the online course provider which partners with leading universities and companies to deliver courses, certificates and even degrees has a great offer to welcome in 2021 - over $100 off a Coursera Plus subscription. 

See Start 2023 With Coursera Plus for details of a 50% discount, $200 off, to welcome in 2023.

2020 has had a huge destabilizing impact on the way we work and has made a career in software development all the more attractive, both for its flexibility and for being able to make a positive contribution.

Coursera saw a notable increase in new enrollments at the start of lockdown and the demand for its skill-building courses has remained at a high level. However the Coursera model can always accommodate more students - the more the merrier as the saying goes.

Coursera Plus, normally costs $399 per year and gives access to the majority of courses on Coursera, taught by top instructors from over 170 leading universities and companies like Duke, Johns Hopkins University, Google Cloud, and more. It includes over 3,000 courses, Guided Projects, Specializations and Proferssional Certificates but does not include degrees or MasterTrack™ Certificates. Until January 10th, 2021 pay just $296 for 12 months access using this link to Coursera Plus:

According to the small print the discount will be applied at checkout until 1/10/2021. One-time use only.

Here are some of the courses that we've covered in depth already that might open new opportunities for you in 2021.

Python is an increasingly popular language to learn and Coursera has the highly popular Python for Everybody Specialization  and Python 3 Programming Specialization, both from the University of Michigan. 

Are you attracted to Machine Learning? One starting point for a beginner-level overview of its many aspects is Machine Learning for All , a course that takes around 22 hours to complete from the University of London. If you are already committed to this area of study if so consider the Machine Learning Specialization from the University of Washington.

If want to become a Data Scientist, consider the Data Mining Specialization from University of Illinois, and if you want to do it with an ML twist. how about the Machine Learning With Big Data which is paret of the Big Data Specialization from UC San Diego.

We've never previously looked at Guided Projects, which come first in the list of what's included with Coursera Plus so now seemed like a good time to find out what's on offer. Guided Projects are short and focus on specific skills. They typically take 2 hours or less to complete and cost $9.49. The format common to all of them is split-screen delivery in which you work alongside the instructor: 

My first pick was Git + GitHub for Open Source Collaboration, guided project is anybody who wants to learn how share and version-control code in an effective and transparent manner. By the end of this beginner-level project, which takes around 2 hours, you'll  be ready to collaborate with any GitHub repository.  You'll have learnt to add and push your code changes, create and merge branches, fork projects, and send pull requests for making your updates mainstream.

Guided Projects seems like a good idea for getting a taster of a new topic. For example in Deep Learning 101: Detecting Ships from Satellite Imagery, which is at Intermediate level and takes one and half hours to complete you get to:

Understand the theory and intuition behind Deep Neural Networks and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs)

Build a deep learning model based on Convolutional Neural Network using Keras with Tensorflow 2.0 as a backend

Assess the performance of trained CNN and ensure its generalization using various Key performance indicators.

While there are already over 150 Guided Projects, new ones are being added all the time. One of the latest is Build a Full-Stack Server for API Requests - NodeJS and Pug. At intermediate level and requiring 1 hour 20 minutes, in it you create a website which reports the weather for a specific city, learning how to use NodeJS to send API requests to Accuweather, and Pug and CSS to present the weather to users, using VSCode throughout. As its blurb notes:

Building a full-stack website is a highly sought after skillset and this course is a great way to get started by building a simple weather website.

An enthusiastic developers could quickly get hooked on Guided Projects so having signed up to Coursera Plus takes away all the angst of having to pay for each one separately. And, as the FAQ's notes, many employers are happy to reimburse the cost of a Coursera Plus subscription, especially when it comes at a generous discount.

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