Nowadays, there are countless different options for all different ways you can study online and chase new careers online.
A majority of ways may only see you learn new things just to find out that they are not accredited and that employers and colleges take them with a pinch of salt.
But… Is this the case with all of them?
Not necessarily. Some have some bad reviews, some have great feedback, but it is all about what you seek out these platforms for, and why you want to learn and in what way you want to learn as well.
One of these many online learning services is Upgrad, it is one of the many hundreds of sites that is there to help people advance with or pursue a career path. But, is it any good?
With there being such a mix of good and bad sites that offer this type of learning assistance, it can be pretty tricky to tell which sites are good and bad at face value.
But, do not worry, we are here to help and ensure that you know everything you need to know about Upgrad review before you jump into your studies.
This is going to be a fantastically comprehensive article on all you need to know about Upgrad, so stick around.
What Is Upgrad?
Let’s start with what Upgrad is. Upgrad is an online learning platform, much like Udacity, Study.com, and so many more. However, Upgrad is actually a bit different from the rest.
Upgrad was founded in India, back in 2015, and it was labeled as being one of the leading and most successful edtech startup business models in the world.
Its founders worked to ensure that the platform would provide PG and UG courses for both college students and professionals who are looking for an online opportunity to grow and gain assistance in their studies.
It is targeted towards people who are from top universities such as the University of Arizona, Wharton, Duke, Caltech, and Purdue University, but on an online platform.
What is awesome about this is that you can actually study courses that are from these Universities without even needing to quit your job. The fact that this is an online learning medium ensures this.
Top Features
So, what does this online learning platform actually provide for you? Let’s take a look at all of its top features…
- They have a forum, and also a functional online community of people. It is functional for people to interact, and to solve each other’s questions.
- They have fully functional online 24/7 customer support available.
- Aside from just undergraduate and postgraduate education, they also offer other courses too. They offer diploma courses for students, and they even offer study abroad courses as well for those who need it.
- You could choose to watch the courses via video, however, you could also choose to watch the courses via audio as well. Lots of documents and projects are available for completion, and you can also do a great deal of the assignments they have to gain practical experience as well.
- The platform is well known for having collaborated with over 1,000 different available universities across the world, and they offer a great deal of different courses, as well as a wide variety of educational programs.
These are all very important details and are very important for you to know about Upgrad as you begin on the site.
But, we all know that what you really want to know is if it is truly worth the money and the effort, or if it is all just a bit over glorified?
Let’s find out…
Is It Worth Joining?
Is it really worth joining Upgrad? Well, it can be really worth it. It is a good platform, as you not only get access to the top universities and their content, but you also get this content and access at a very affordable and reasonable price.
You also get a placement guarantee, and as the education is available online, you can get this education without having to sacrifice other parts of your education, your work or your life.
You won’t have to quit your existing job, you can instead, study alongside it.
All the features inside the traditional package you get with Upgrad will allow you to get a secure online education for an affordable price in an easier way.
Upgrad Pros & Cons
Sp, what are the pros and cons of UpGrad? Is it worth getting and what are the downsides of using it?
Pros
- There are a very wide variety of courses available from some of the top universities across the world.
This is probably the biggest advantage overall. You can get a very wide array of courses from data sciences to MBA, to digital marketing, machine learning, law, AI, and much more. The variety is awesomely great.
You need to keep in mind that you get these courses from no individual instructor, but instead from professors and faculty remembers at the top universities such as Business Schools and places such as Caltech and such.
Thus, if you should ever have dreamt of studying at a top tier universities, however, turned your back on it thanks to how expenses of further education, this could be your very chance to study at such a place, and for a much more affordable price, while also getting the certificate of which can open up so many doors for you in your future.
- It is much more affordable than taking offline classes.
One more advantage of these courses is that they are significantly more affordable in comparison to offline classes in Universities.
If you wanted to do an MBA at Liverpool Business School then it would be likely to cost you around £21,000 however, if you did the exact same MBA at the same University, but online it could cost you only around $5,000.
With only courses, you can see that you do not only get access to the online courses, from the top universities, colleges, and business schools, but you also get to attend these courses and study like such for an affordable price.
These prices are much more affordable in pretty much every category of education.
- You can get accredited certifications as well.
There are plenty of other advantages of learning on Upgrad, and this is that you can get an accredited certificate of completion once you finish the course.
This pretty much just means that you can receive an official recognition from the University by any government agency, otherwise any third party company after the evaluation of the University/ company in detail.
Thus if you get a course certificate from Upgrad once you have completed the course then as the certificate is actually from the university, it becomes an accredited certificate. So, it can be useful when applying for jobs. As it builds more credibility.
- You can view the self paced free and paid courses both on the app and on the website.
You will be able to view the course on the app and on the website, both of which will be available on iOS and Android systems. This makes this a good factor for convenience, and most importantly all of the courses of Upgrad are paced by self.
You can watch and listen to them whenever and wherever you want to, so you could even study on your way to and from your job.
And as well as this, aside from the paid courses, you will also be able to view many different free courses which are also available to all, and easily enrolled in by all of the students on this platform.
- You can access career placements and career assistance.
One more advantage of using Upgrad is that there is also the opportunity to get placements and assistance once you get on the course platform.
Upgrad has a great deal of opportunity for plenty of mock interviews, and opportunities to build on your resume and get help to build your resumes. It can help you to make sure that your resume is built well and looks good to potential future employers.
You will have access to the support team who can help you make placements, and you may also see that there have been a fairly good percentage of students that have enrolled in Upgrab who have ended up seeing an increase in salaries.
Of course, job opportunity increases can go up as well, like you would expect with accreditation from a top tier educational institution.
Overall, your opportunities increase, and you see assistance and mentoring during and after the course from Upgrad.
Cons
- Universities are not broad.
While you do still have plenty of opportunities, there are some major disadvantages as well, there are not a huge variety of universities available in the education programs. There are top universities, as we have previously stated.
However, in some topics, there are restrictions. If you wanted to do an MBA of data science there may not be a range of options available to you.
If some of the other top learning institutions end up collaborating with the platform in the future, then it would highly benefit those who want to learn in different ways.
However, they are still not available at present times.
- No live interactions.
While this is a great online educational program in which you can get further education in many ways from top universities, there is a flaw in how you gain these qualifications.
Your content is pre-recorded from professors, you can get some live content, however, it is not very regular, and so for those who learn better with live interaction, and real life networking, this is unlikely to be a suitable option.
Essentially, you will be consistently studying everything online.
User Reviews
One of the best ways you can learn about any program, platform, or website is to look at what current and previous users have had to say about it.
A very popular review website that has a fair bit of interaction about Upgrab is g2. On this site, we can see that the platform has a solid 4 out of 5 stars from 40 overall reviews.
It has 4 3-star reviews, 13 4-star reviews, and 23 5-star reviews.
Here are some things that people had to say about Upgrad:
“ I would say Upgrad is a well-structured program for gaining new domain expertise, and can be done in parallel to your office work”.
“The placement support is not very good”.
“Can schedule 1-1 sessions with experts, which is very useful and gives a lot of insights from current trends and industry practices.”
“They have a wide range of courses covering various fields with a user-friendly interface which is easy to access and operate.”
“I can even download videos of classes to watch them when I have slow or no internet”.
Some of the negative reviews on this site were more toward people not understanding how it works.
There were some comments about expense, while it can be expensive, it is much cheaper than doing the course at that university in an offline setting.
Some reviews stated that the course does not provide books, however, online education rarely does this.
To Conclude
Overall, there is not much negative to say about Upgrad, the platform was created with a target audience of those who may want to study internationally at a top tier university but may not be able to afford the extortionate fees that come with it.
However, now it does seem to attract even more people to it, usually those who are seeking to get a good education but do not wish to quit their jobs.
The only negative side to it seems to be that there are restrictions in the universities on offer and the topics.
