Coursera and what it has to offer to students - by Leticia Campello

Coursera is a website that offers free specialisation and courses, online and open to everyone, from over 140 universities around the world. More than 2000 courses are available on Coursera alongside with over 180 specialisations. It is possible to learn new skills in 4-6 weeks, if you are enrolled in a course, and in 4-6 months if you are enrolled in a specialisation. Coursera has a wide range of categories that covers from arts and humanities to math and logic and videos include subtitles in over 30 languages.

You might be asking yourself - is it possible to get a certificate after completing the course? And yes, all courses provide certification, if a fee is paid, which is stated before you start the course. The perks of purchasing the certification is that the website allows you to share on Linkedin and you can add it in your CV. Moreover, you can still enroll on a course or specialisation completely free of charge, but no certification is provided.

I’m currently a student of mechanical engineering, but I have always been interested in philosophy since high school, where I had sociology and philosophy classes. I found out about coursera through a friend a while ago and I was very interested in seeing what they had to offer. As I wanted to do something related to philosophy, I decided to check coursera’s website and I found out that the University of Edinburgh offers an “Introduction to Philosophy” course. It has been a very interesting experience to do an online course provided by such a renowned university as the University of Edinburgh, while I’m still enrolled in my undergraduate course in Sheffield!

This is a great opportunity for you to improve and develop different skills. All courses are very well structured, provide weekly quizzes and group forums, and you can do everything at your own pace. It is definitely worth checking if the website has anything of your interest! If you want to find out more about Coursera, here is their website: https://www.coursera.org/.

Engineering You’re Hired ! – 2018 by Ioan-Alexandru Herdea

“How was your EYH?” This is the second most common question for a University of Sheffield student.The first question is “How did your exams go?” I would like to  clarify that EYH stands for Engineering You’re Hired. As my IEA colleagues, Rishi Parwani and Hui Choo  have already written it is the second week-long project for engineering students. All first year engineering students at the University of Sheffield take part into GEC (Global Engineering Challenge) and in the second year they take part in EYH.

At the beginning of the week, all attendees are informed that the final award is a box of chocolates. Well, I can assure you, that it is a lot more than that. You are assigned to work in a group, alongside six other students who you may not know or have ever met. The only common aspect is that you have all selected to work on the same project. By the end of the week by Friday, you and your group have to come up with a solution to a project and then present this to a panel of judges. In addition to this you have to produce a report based on your findings. The report needs to be a maximum of 1700 words, bearing in mind there are 6 members in the group, means it’s a lot less words per head! You do gain a lot of skills from this competition namely working in a team, critical-thinking and research skills, which are excellent for any CV.

The project begins from the very basics and you gradually work through to the final product, which has to include details about costings, materials required, components, type of workforce and so on. The project my team was working on was about swarm robots for agriculture, we had to agree on how many drones the system would require and also research what materials would be the most effective to use in California, as it gets very hot during the summer. Nobody wants a drone to start melting whilst fertilising the fields. So, there was a lot of research involved, or in other words, a lot of time spent scrolling on Google.

It was a great experience attending the interview and to have the opportunity to talk about your team-working abilities and to discuss our conclusions. EYH is such a useful week in terms of employability as you have to use terminology and language which is frequently used by employers.This is significant as there are very few Universities in the UK that offer this kind of programme. The experience will not guarantee you a job, but it will help you to adapt easier in the future, when working with new team members from different cultures and engineering disciplines. In addition to this, it makes you look at things in a different way as you have to consider other people’s way of thinking and finding a way of working together.

In conclusion, EYH is extremely useful, not only on a personal level in the enjoyment and the taking part, but you also develop and enhance many different skills other than academic ones.

Rishi Parwani : http://ieasheffield.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/engineering-youre-hired-or-one-step.html 
Hui Choo : http://ieasheffield.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/engineering-youre-hired-2016.html