Are you a fresh graduate who has a malnourished resume and no starting money to boost your career?
Have you considered taking self-paced courses for additional skills, credentials, and most importantly, certificates to brag about on your LinkedIn? If yes, and you don’t know where to start, stick with me. If not, well…why not?
In this article, I will help you take awesome courses with less hassle and no money spent using Coursera’s financial aid option.
What is Coursera?
“Coursera is a global online learning platform that offers anyone, anywhere, access to online courses and degrees from leading universities and companies.” ~Coursera
With that being said, Coursera is a legitimate platform just like Hubspot Academy, Leet code, Upwork, LinkedIn Learning, Udacity, Khan Academy, etc. that brings educational content from different renowned universities and companies such as Calarts, Arizona State University, Google, IBM and so on and so forth. Hence, if you want to enroll in a course about pottery, teaching, or coding, you can do it on Coursera at your own pace, without the burden of deadlines. Why? Because Coursera doesn’t have deadlines!
What is Financial Aid?
“Coursera offers financial aid for learners who could benefit from our paid products but cannot afford to pay the associated fee. Learners accepted into the program are granted a fee waiver that allows them to access all of the course content and complete all work required to earn a Certificate.” ~Coursera
This is especially helpful for learners who can’t afford to go to a school because of their financial status. With Coursera, you are given a chance to finish a course and earn a certificate for free!
How to apply for financial aid?
Create an account on Coursera.org.
Of course, to apply for financial aid, you should have an account which will be where your progress and information are stored.
In creating an account, all you need is simply a working email and a password, and then you are done. Make sure that the name that you input is the actual full name that you want to be in the certificates you would earn.
Explore and choose the desired course
There are countless courses and even guided projects that are sometimes free. But in some cases, courses are always paid, unless, of course, you apply for financial aid.
Click the financial aid
After choosing the course you want to take, DON’T CLICK ‘ENROLL FOR FREE’! It’s a trap. What you should click is the hyperlink beside it, which says “financial aid available”.
Choose the course you want to apply first.
To finish and gain a professional certificate in your chosen field, you should finish 5-8 courses. Each course has a weekly lesson content, although it is categorized as “week 1, week 2…” You can take it in your own time frame, thus, if you’re really hardworking, a week of content could be toppled in less than an hour. Don’t worry, in most professional certifications, Coursera will provide you a certificate in each course that you finish.
Click “Continue to the application”
Please, don’t be fooled, don’t click “enroll”
As you can see, Coursera needs at least 15 days to process your application, and if you click enroll, you can start the course the moment you log in but the difference is, that it’s not free. However, not everything is free, even if you applied for financial aid, the fee is your precious time. You need to wait 15 days before you can start the course. Don’t fret, as far as my intel goes, nobody fails the financial aid application.
Fill in the needed information
This part is where you would try to appease the Coursera management as to why you are applying for financial aid. In a minimum of 150 words, try to touch their heart. You will also need to state your education, employment status, and annual income.
In the next part of the form, you will be asked how much you can pay for each course and another essay question of 150 words on how the course you chose could help your goal. Again, my tip is to touch their heart with your words. Once done, just click review.
Wait
And now you wait. As I previously said, you would need to wait 15 days before your application is approved and you can fully start your course. I have applied for financial aid for 8 courses in Coursera already and never did they fail to send an approved application to my email in less or more than 15 days.
Using Coursera’s financial aid, quality education has been accessible to all, all you need is an internet, a computer, and a will to learn.
That is how you apply for financial aid in Coursera. I hope it helps!
Do you have any questions? Comments? Violent reactions? Or maybe you just want to say, “What’s up dawg?” Don’t be shy and just type it down below! I don’t bite.
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