‘A Game Changer’: How a Product Analyst Strengthened His Learning with the AI Tool Coursera Coach

Transitioning from a job to a career may require expanding your skill set and investing in additional education. Bonginkosi Biyela—or Bongi as he typically goes by—knew that learning would be an important bridge to shift his role from UPS supervisor to the product space.  

Biyela went back to school to earn his bachelor’s degree in economics with a minor in entrepreneurship, but he also supplemented that higher education with Coursera. Bongi initially enrolled in the Google Project Management Professional Certificate and appreciated its self-paced structure. “It took me six months to complete because I was working and also going to school,” he explained. 

When he sat down to work through his Professional Certificate, Biyela would use Google to clarify topics and concepts he was learning. In recent months, though, he’s been turning to Coursera Coach—the AI-powered guide available in paid offerings on Coursera. “It was a game changer,” he said.

How Coursera Coach can accelerate learning

Coach is a friendly blue avatar with glasses that provides learners with on-demand, interactive assistance. Once you’ve enrolled in a Professional Certificate, Specialization, or course on Coursera, Coach helps ensure you get the most out of the program you’ve selected. Before you get started, it can explain what you’ll learn and give you advice for succeeding. And once you begin moving through each lesson, it can summarize lectures and readings, provide practice questions, and relate learning to professional scenarios so you more firmly grasp real-world applications.  

Biyela turns to Coach as he’s beginning a new module. “It helps me to get the basic background of ‘What am I approaching here?’” Once he feels like he has a comfortable foundation, he then goes to Coach for simple explanations. “It will break it down for me,” he said. “As I get that understanding, then I go back and watch the video. Now I can make the connection.” 

Once he completed his first Professional Certificate on Coursera, Biyela felt prepared to pursue the roles he wanted at major companies. “The Google Project Management Professional Certificate opened up opportunities for me to get interviews with Fortune 500 companies,” he said.* 

Where Biyela wants to take his career next

Having made the leap from supply chain management supervisor to product analyst, Biyela has his sights set on advancing toward a digital product management role. “It's about understanding the processes and then having those processes help me to solve my customer problems and also drive business value,” he explained about what drew him to that path.   

To keep building the skills he’ll need in management, Biyela has been working his way through the IBM AI Product Manager Professional Certificate. “It’s a nice opportunity for me to leverage this course and upskill on the artificial intelligence side of things,” he said. “It combines traditional product management with AI and it's not overly technical.” 

Biyela is still a big fan of the self-paced learning on Coursera, even though he has more time in his schedule now that he’s completed his bachelor’s degree. “This is the nice thing with Coursera, it’s not just about getting the certificate,” he said. “It's actually getting yourself involved because you have capstone projects and all that. That's why I like it. I take my time to consume and understand—it's actually getting that well-rounded experience.” 

Enroll in a paid Coursera program to begin using Coach

With Coach, you can learn more effectively and progress with confidence through your chosen program. A great place to start is a subscription to Coursera Plus, where you’ll get access to over 7,000 courses from over 325 leading universities and companies. 

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*Individual experiences and outcomes can vary and Coursera does not guarantee job interviews or job placements upon completion of its courses.