Although I spend a lot of time at the computer and have taken more than 200 online courses since 2012, I’m still learning how to make the most of generative AI tools. I’m not a complete beginner in the world of AI, but definitely need to become more fluent in its use. In this respect, I found Google Prompting Essentials, created by Google Career Certificates, very helpful. This course, released in October 2024, provided plenty of ideas for creating and refining prompts in a variety of situatio

Coursera announced job cuts on July 6, eight weeks after its merger with Udemy closed. The company didn’t say how many people were affected. The only number it gave was a cost, $8 million to $11 million. After digging around California’s website, I found that 59 people were laid off: 31 from Coursera’s Mountain View headquarters, and 28 from Udemy’s office in San Francisco. California only requires these notices for jobs in the state, so that isn’t the whole number. Based on what the two compa

What if I told you that one man’s frustration with an elevator breakdown led to the creation of the fastest-growing and most-beloved programming languages today? Seventeen years ago, Graydon Hoare’s ordinary evening turned pivotal when an out-of-order elevator at his apartment building forced him to trek up 21 stories. A Mozilla software engineer, Hoare’s frustration wasn’t just with the climb, but with the fact that the tools of his trade couldn’t even make an elevator that works without cras

Ryan Panchadsaram, course instructor. I recently took OKR Certification: Leadership and Goal Setting by Measure What Matters on Coursera. This course was added to the Class Central catalog in September 2022. Why I Chose this Course At Class Central, we recently started setting quarterly OKRs to boost the company’s performance. I previously worked in the banking industry and was familiar with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), but had never heard of OKRs. I decided to find out more by taking thi