Java Programming: Solving Problems with Software

This course, rather than teaching you how to write programs in Object-oriented programming paradigm, teaches you how to write simple programs (classes) in Java.

The purpose of this course, I feel, is not to teach me Java specifically (because they do not really touch on the relationships of classes, objects, superclasses, subclasses, interface, inheritance, etc). However, they teach me programming in the Java development environment. In short, the goal is to teach me how to write simple codes and perform basic algorithms in Java.

With this goal, I think the course did well, I am very comfortable with writing codes in Java after the course. The course also had ample practice via programming exercises (practice quizzes). Their assignments are also of good-quality because they do not have many MCQs (which you can usually just tick until you hit the correct one). Rather, they require us to type in our written program's output to answer. Hence, they make sure that we actually did our work, wrote the program, understand whats going on.

The course, and other courses in the specialization, will give you all the basic concepts in Java, except for the Object-oriented programming paradigm. This one is better taught in other courses like the Java specialization offered by UC San Diego.

What happened? The first course in this series was a stellar introduction to programming for those with little/no experience, with the added bonus of amazing "mentors" (moderators) in the discussion forums to help solve issues. This course, however, is a vast departure from that. The lectures are incredibly long, hard to follow, and don't seem to apply to the exercises, and the forums are hardly monitored at all. I work in IT and while I am certainly a beginner, I'm neither an idiot nor unfamiliar with these concepts; yet I'm struggling to the point of wanting to quit. If it wasn't for sites like StackExchange and the help of my friends and coworkers, I'd be long gone.

Here's hoping they can bring the "magic" and care of the first course to this one- otherwise, this feels like a hastily put-together and poorly managed MOOC. That said, this course is on par with a similar free offering from EdX I took last year- don't waste your money. Go with the free option instead and you'll get the same value.