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2.5 stars, 4 stars had I not run into my Customer Service issues/ 2 broken tests.

Did I learn in this class? Yes! Is the information valuable: Yes!

This class could have been more broken down and more in-depth.

Coming into this class I didn't know anything about powershell or Linux. I know a little now, but I'm absolutely not a Power User. It was a great intro course, but of course it's not all inclusive. What you can reap from this class is the confidence to go out and take more in depth classes on Linux or Powershell. Maybe then you'll be close to a Power User. I'd say this class does show you HOW to become a Power User. The only problem is this: This class links to wikipedias a lot without any extra guided instruction. They tack the caviot of: "As an IT specialist, you'll have to do research on your own." Few things are more annoying than paying for someone to teach you and then to have that teacher indirectly say: "Hi! Here's a link someone else wrote. Teach yourself!" I could do that without paying a sub fee. Additionally the in class examples do not match with the linked examples of powershell or Linux commands. For those 100% brand new to the system, parts are virtually unreadable. In this class, you'll have to sift google to find some newbie friendly guides to supliment this class. I find this to be a painful thing in the Computer Science world. Any class labeled with: "BEGINNER FRIENDLY!" will require at least two scaffolding classes to prop you up. News flash: that means it isn't beginner friendly. It means it is intermediate in the educational world.

One other problem I encountered was that the last two exams did not function for me. I had a 50/50 split of customer service. For the windows exam, I got a great customer service agent and they were able to listen to me and see I had completed the objectives. I got 100% (as I should have) even though the lab wouldn't register I had completed the objectives. The Linux lab was broken in exactly the same way. Despite sending in screenshots of the error causing the lab to do several things (being unable to type in the terminal, recieving errors when updating programs which required two or three updates and forced fixes at the admin level...) in addition to never giving a score above 20. The last customer service agent I got pretty much copy-pasted responses, linked me to a broken video, and then randomly gave me an 80% score. Annoying, as I know I 100% satsified the objectives. Did I get my certificate still? Absolutely! I can't complain too much, but when you're taking an IT class about being decent at customer service and this happens? I'll just be an optimist and chalk it up to: "Hey! everyone's human." Long story short: Should you take this class: YES! What should you expect: a very introductary level overview of things you can do in both powershell and Linux including introductions to some other softwares like chocolatey and process explorer. Both of these were fantastic to explore and I didn't know about them before this class. Expect really difficult to interpret test questions as well. Remember to provide feedback when questions are confusing. Good test questions should always be clear. I know. I've taken several college level classes about how to write exam questions and boy were those classes tough. (Google deserves a lot of slack in this; they have the best intentions for sure. Just use it as an opportunity to help improve the class and show Google what's confusing to different users.)

What you should not expect: You will not be a Power User having taken this class. You will know more than the average joe about computers which is fantastic, but you'll have to do a lot of outside work to get to the Power User status. This is merely a gateway to taking a more intermediate level class.

When frustrated: practice and get those programs!!! I really think the only way to become a true power user is through doing, doing, and doing some more! :D Hang in there!

The teacher was really good and well-spoken, and I could understand a lot of what was being said to me. The issues came in during some of the Qwiklab assignments, which I noticed a lot of other people were having problems with. Some of them were well put together, but others loaded too slowly, gave errors, or just didn't respond to what I did. I have a good computer, so the program running slowly is definitely not my fault. One issue I had (that other reviewers also seemed to encounter) is sometimes the loading times could take up to 10 minutes. Remember, these are timed quizzes. If they consistently load slowly, you could end up running out the timer, and if it's a prominent enough issue, it may make it outright impossible for you to complete the course. Make sure you have a good computer if you plan on taking this. In one of the Qwiklab assignments, I had to put in around 8 or so detailed commands in a row. The first several commands didn't give any output, so I had no way of knowing if I did something wrong. Then, one of the commands just didn't work. I literally spent the entire hour time limit trying to get it to work, then I read other reviews of that lab where people said they couldn't get it to work, either. This command is detrimental to completing the lab, so if you wind up in that situation, you just have to accept losing points for that portion of it. Another issue with the Qwiklab assignments is that they threaten to ban you if you deviate from what you're supposed to do. I can't speak for everyone on this, but this made me really anxious to do anything because I felt that if I did one small thing wrong, I would be banned and unable to complete the course. They should definitely be more specific about things like that. All in all, the Qwiklab quizzes were the only major issues I had with this course. The information was put together well enough, and it was nice to learn more about operating systems like Windows and Linux. You will definitely learn a lot here, just be prepared for possible technical issues.

It was very dense and could have been two courses.

I am experience GUI user and haven't worked in Linux or PowerShell and the pace felt overwhelming. The instructor was very intelligent and very experienced; I just wished the course was geared to beginners in writing commands. I felt like she would gloss over REALLY important things and spend time on things that were important but not vital to building a solid foundation of knowledge. she would switch back and forth between Windows and Linux muddying (in my mind) which commands were used in each. I know that there is a quite a bit of overlap but I think that I would have found it more helpful to focus on one and then focus on the other one. Also, if she could have paused to let the viewer see the command that she was writing before hitting enter which in most cases made the command disappear. The transcript wasn't helpful with the grammar of the commands. The readings would have been more helpful if the foundation of concepts had been established better.

I also had issue with the labs: Weeks 1-5 were too easy, where the answers were given to you and then in Week 6, you were basically on your own. I first weeks needed to be more challenging before giving you barely any instruction on Week 6's labs. In Week 6's labs, it would have been nice to have feedback on which ones were completed correctly and which ones needed more study.

Don't attempt this course without some prior knowledge of Powershell and Linux command line. I recommend "The Linux Command Line, A Complete Introduction" by Willaim Shotts (No Starch Press) , the first 100 pages, and "Learn Windows Powershell in a Month of Lunches", 3rd edition, by Don Jones and Jeffery Hicks, Manning Publishers, (especially the chapters on Help and commands). I know that these books are expensive, but they are well worth their expense. Without these books I would never have completed the course.

The initial lectues are too fast paced and with too much material to be learned effectively. The course should be expanded into a 8 or 12 week course. Also, more emphasis on explaining what the various command do would be helpful. And this is important! A dictionary of the commands used in the lectures for each week and how the commands work would help the student .

The Qwiklabs are a work in progress. For example, on my last successful attempt to comlete the final Windows Lab, the screen froze. I decided to end the lab, because I already had enough points to pass the lab.

I enjoyed the course, and I think the information will be definitely very usefull , however , I think this course (and the whole IT support program) will benefit with a.. lot more... pedagogic approach to it . It would be great if is explained before each topic, how this can be used in a real life scenario, why are we learning this specific skill. This will help to spark more interest in the topic and to remembering it a lot better.

During and/or at the end of topics , provide a couple of real life examples of problems that we can apply this skill to and how to do it. also there there is a need for many excersices along the way to practice so we can undestand and remember the information better. for example, just mentioning a command once or twice, its very difficult to remember it and even less to really understand it, mostly when its brand new information (someone who has never use anything similar).

I realize this would make the course a little longer, but it would be TOTALLY WOTH IT . ;) ... just my two cents.

like all the courses i had a lot of trouble just accessing the linux lab with my chromebook. The instructions are incomplete in the labs and led to countless hours spent with help desk staff just trying to enter or setup the lab.....ultimately the solution was very simple but after countless hours, trying six or seven times just trying to get either cloudshell or secureshell up and running to do a simple lab, a helpdesk person gave me a simple bit of information which had i known a month ago could have saved me hours of headaches.

The course was ok but i found the instructor would just breathe past command lines too quickly, moving on before i could really absorb what she was saying. A bit more explanation and a slower pace at times would have been helpful. Also a bit more explanation of the spacing in command lines would have been nice. She often typed commands without explaining why or how to place flags., the need to space everything correctly.

Too many things were glossed over very quickly. There were many topics where there were multiple solutions to an issue and one or two options were given but more were suggested by the instructor saying " there are other ways but we'll talk about them in a later course" only for them never to be brought up again. Very heavy preference was given to explaining topics in Windows PowerShell, and granted most companies do rely on them more than Linux or macOS machines but to spend 90% of the time on Windows and then get the "it works the same way on Linux" and macOS ignored I find dismissive. With more companies switching away from Windows based IT due to higher IT support costs, I find it a bit narrow minded to take this approach. I still do find the course informative and am glad to be apart of the program.

Love the instruction - clear, concise, understandable. Would be helpful for labs to immediately follow the instruction to apply knowledge in practice rather than at the end.

Final assessment 2 issues: Completed Windows lab processes (per clear instructions) but no idea how it was graded and where anything was missed. Linux (I found much easier to use) did not specify what file needed what process update or instruction = no instruction for the specific file provided. Ex. Going back to week 3 lab referred to installing Atom - the assessment lab was not asking for this but updating a file using apt update, apt full-upgrade and where none of the 4 files were specified to be updated. Unclear instruction at the end resulted in good understanding throughout and, unfortunately, 'A' grades being abandoned.

I really had a lot of difficulty with the labs especially the last linux lab in the course. I'm not sure if it's just that I am new to using command line or if they are actually not very instructional, although I have read about others in the forum having trouble with them. All in all even though I was having trouble with them it made me work in the CLI more so maybe it's good? I did end up passing. It however was not an enjoyable experience and made me dislike using linux CLI so I think that should be looked at because I do think the unpleasantness came from the labs and the instructions not from using linux. I get that the last lab was meant for us to figure it out on our own but I think it could use more guidance.

I did really enjoy the course, however I feel like the graded parts at the end of the first 5 Weeks are not so well done given that if one just follows the instruction, they can pass. Though on the other hand I can also see that by allowing one to do these will help build memory for them in the future so to speak. So I am not fully against them, just that I believe they should be practice ones instead of graded ones. Week 6 was done well, and I liked having to learn by either remembering or honestly going through my notes (Some of the more obvious answers evaded me and when I figured it out I just laughed at myself for my own stupidity.)

However helpful and interesting, there are many gaps here and there, but even more worrying is its structure, which in some point things seem to be all over the place, taking you from the obvious to rather complex things without any warning or even getting you off guard, specially if, like myself, you are totally new to many of the modern concepts of computing. The course should, on my humble opinion, keep this in mind, and try to take beginners "by the hand", at least for the most basic and important concepts, so that they get a strong basics foundation from where they can start building on and expand their new knowledge...

While I do like challenges and this course definitely presented one, I felt as though more detailed instructions and/or interactive labs instead of the usual quiz would help people gain a much better understanding. Supplemental readings on the various command lines in PowerShell and Linux can be overwhelming and I know many people struggled with the final tests. I am hopeful that the course administrators will someday utilize the virtual machines more so that you can effectively practice alongside what is being presented to you in the videos. Overall, I'm glad I was able to make it through with persistence!

Good course, very technical; almost a little too technical due to its overall lack of context. It was all quite interesting, but it was difficult finding the jumping off point at course two where the content picked up in course three...there seemed to be some kind of in-between course missing.

Also, the weekly qwiklabs would do better to build off each other while repeating more knowledge over again (i.e. week one = task A; week two = tasks A and B; week three = tasks A, B, and C, etc.) , than just jumping from topic to topic with a large wrap-up of everything at the end.

Best,

John Marshall

I experienced a bug in the Windows-VM-based labs, and no one I contacted in support was able to help me. I ended up accidentally figuring out a solution myself (I had to continuously press the ALT key in order to get my typed text to show up in PowerShell).

I guess that is on-brand for a tech support certification, but it is unsettling to me when I think of how I have already put $500+ into this certification and no one could help me ensure that I hadn't just thrown that money away. It makes me less likely to trust Coursera with a significant investment of funds in the future.