You must read this review before deciding to study at Pluralsight.
Introduction to Pluralsight
Pluralsight is an e-learning platform, which offers a large array of courses, with primary focus on skills relating IT/ technology.
Pluralsight gives an opportunity to start a career in IT or update the current skills in topics such as software development, web development, coding, IT networking, big data or cyber security.
You can say, PluralSight serves as a Learning Management System (or LMS) which connects learners to online courses.
PluralSight has a subscription-based model which is quite similar to Netflix, providing access to each course in the library.
After the Introduction, I’ll briefly tell you about the PluralSight’s background.
| Pros: • Large number of courses: and nearly 80+ new ones added every month, • Expert instructors, • High quality of content, • Desktop and mobile apps that enable offline viewing, • Certificate of completion • Access to Qwiklabs with Google Cloud-authored programs |
| Cons: • No accredited certification • Once you stop to pay monthly, you lose subscription (no lifetime subscription) |
Background
Pluralsight was founded by Aaron Skonnard in 2004. Today, it has 4 offices in 3 countries and 1,700+ employees working all around the world.
The courses at Pluralsight are developed by more than 1,500 IT experts and industry giants ( such as Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe and Google).
Every learner must give a 20-question test to know if he/she must take admission in a beginner, intermediate, or advanced level course.
After telling you about the background, now I’ll tell you about what subjects you can learn from PluralSight’s e-learning platform.
Courses
Resources at Pluralsight cover a large number of technology topics, like
- Data science/analysis
- Software development
- Cyber security
- IT ops
- Cloud computing
- Machine learning/AI
- Software architecture
- Business skills (e.g., communication, management, podcasting)
- Creative topics (e.g., VFX, game dev, and 3D animation)
So, PluralSight’s entire focus is on IT-related fields. This list doesn’t stop here as it doesn’t include things like learning paths which are a mixture of courses that prepare students for a particular profession.
If you are a beginner and looking to enroll at Udemy, you must know that you may find many PluralSight courses hard to complete as they quickly change level from beginner to intermediate. Therefore, you should only think about e-learning at Pluralsight if you enjoy challenges and if you can manage a steep learning curve.
After telling you about the PluralSight’s offered courses, I’ll tell you what you need to pay to get monthly subscription of Pluralsight’s e-learning platform.
Pricing
I must say, with a subscription charges of $29/month it is little expensive to study at Pluralsight. But their charges are still less than other e-learning platforms such as CodeCademy ($39/month) and Treehouse ($199/month). Monthly membership at Pluralsight gives you access to:
- Learning Paths
- Entire range of (6,500+) Pluralsight courses
- Skill IQ
- Offline Viewing
- Learning Channels
- Exercise Files
- Course Learning Check
- Mobile Applications (Android & iOS)
- Certificates Of Completion
Pluralsight offers a subscription-based service with the choice of monthly or annual billing:
Monthly subscription of Pluralsight costs $29/month; annual subscription costs $299.00/year and Premium subscription costs $449.00/year. Organizations can also avail Enterprise and Professional plans to train their workforce.
I’m sure after reading the above details it would become much easier for you to decide if you should use Pluralsight to pursue your career in IT.
Ease of Use
The Pluralsight’s interface is quite user-friendly. Let me tell you some major features of this website.
At the PluralSight’s home page, you will find the menu at the top right corner. Just click on the courses and see each course, Pluralsight learning paths, and assessments.
You may also type specific keywords in the search bar and directly access your desired course. You can simply enter name of an author, title of a course, resource or skill level. One problem is, you cannot find any course on basis of its rating.
By clicking on any course, you can see information about the course such as its author, course content and it’s description. Course videos are played in a YouTube like interface in which playlist of lessons are present at the right and the course video is played on the left.
You can even create your profile, set an avatar, connect with other social media profiles, and record your progress at Pluralsight.
Working with so many options may seem overwhelming; but all in all you will find the PluralSight’s e-learning platform very professional, easy to navigate and intuitive.
Content Quality
Unlike many e-learning providers like Skillshare or Udemy, where every person can upload a course, PluralSight has a higher criteria for their courses. Due to which, Pluralsight has courses developed by the industry-leading experts only.
Pluralsight claims that they only publish 3 videos out of 1000 videos they receive every day. This is because Pluralsight only publish what fulfills their higher quality criteria.
Pluralsight Courses are developed in-house, due to which they have clear voice and higher-quality videos. Each instructor is an expert of his individual subject area, so you will learn excellent learning material under supervision of instructors who understand what they’re doing.
After students have viewed all the videos, course content and solved all the quizzes they can then download their certificate of completion. The certificates can be printed for attaching with a resume or CV!
Many students are curious to know if Pluralsight certificates are accrediated? Unfortunately, like almost all e-learning providers Pluralsight certificates are not accredited.
Features
- Course discussions: You can ask questions, share queries, find a community and interact with other learners,
- Cross-platform support: Courses can be accessed via mobile device or desktop — even videos can be downloaded to view in offline mode.
- Guided feedback: Projects, guided feed back and Hands-on coding challenges (Enterprise, Professional, and Premium only)
- Free personal trial for 10 days: To check if this platform is right for you.
- Practice exams: Pluralsight offers practice exams to prepare students for professional certifications (Enterprise, Professional and Premium)
- Test and Short Quizzes: Students get a chance to practice while learning, see if they’re ready for more advanced courses, and validate their skills.
- Role IQ: Students can choose a role title, fill the skill assessments, and Pluralsight will recommend learning opportunities to fill any skills gaps and confirm if you are proficient at your role.
- Qwiklabs free access (with Google Cloud-authored courses): Students receive temporary testimonials to Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, to learn the cloud via the real experience – no simulations.
- Visual Studio Code Extension: If you’re experiencing a coding issue, Pluralsight helps you in finding recommendations related to code-specific content (guides, paths, video clips, and courses) without having to seek help from google to check an answer.
- Certificates of completion: You can generate a certificate of completion after 100% completion of a course.
I’m sure that you’ll find above mentioned features of Pluralsight’s e-learning platform to be interesting and help you to decide if you must choose Pluralsight for your learning too.
So now you about the quality of content and a lot of other features of PluralSight’s e-learning platform. Now I’ll tell you about what I found to be the most significant courses you must consider after subscribing to the PluralSight.
The Most Recommended Courses
1. Understanding Machine Learning
If you are a beginner in Machine Learning, this course enables you to learn the programming language R and tells you how to test or train a model of machine learning. It offers a great introduction to machine learning, which leads to an extremely lucrative career ( a machine learning engineer earns an average salary of $143,000+).
2. Git Fundamentals
This course teaches a great real-world skill to the prospective software developers. Through this course you will learn how to develop local repository, push alterations in to a remote repository, commit files, correct errors in the commits, and a lot more.
3. JavaScript Core Language
Through this path of learning, you can learn JavaScript while learning the fundamentals of functions, collections and arrays. You can also build your skills in advanced topics like asynchronous programming. To take admission in this course you must have prior knowledge of CSS/ HTML, otherwise this course is beginner-friendly!
So, you must take classes on the above mentioned courses to take your IT skills to the next level.
Personal learning experience
Honestly, there is no technology related topic you cannot find at Pluralsight. The feature I love the most is the prior knowledge test; which gives you an accurate feedback about what you already know and what you need to focus on. A negative aspect is the speed of transition from beginners to intermediate level, may times I had to rewind the video several times to understand what was being taught. But, if you are an eager and self-motivated learner, then such troubles can be easily ignored. Also, the instructors are proficient in their subject area and know their stuff very well. If you have no idea how to start to learn about a new technology, it is a good way to use Pluralsight as YouTube and Google may show you the resources to learn about the same topics but it may take hours to select the most suitable resources.
I’m sure my personal learning experience of learning at Pluralsight will help you decide if you should use Pluralsight’s e-learning platform for yourself.
Conclusion
The above discussion shows that PluralSight is a significant e-learning platform that you can use to learn a large array of IT/ technology related courses. It is a useful website where courses with high-quality content are taught by the expert instructors. However, if you are someone with no previous knowledge about IT/technology then be prepared for a quick transition from beginner to the intermediate skill level.