Let me start from the beginning. I got a call from simplilearn representative. I told him I already know the foundations of blockchain so my main objective for this course is to learn how to code in solidity to build my own D-app.
First False Promise:
I asked him if I need to know any coding languages so that I can learn that first before taking this course. He said no coding knowledge is required; everything will be taught from scratch. This was the first false promise.(I will get to it later why)
Second False Promise:
He also said he will give me a course for free and he made it sound like he was going to give me a paid course for free. Also, when I asked him if I can take any course from Simplilearn he said yes. This was the second false promise.
Third False Promise:
Now I had actually given my number twice to download the syllabus so I got a call from another one of their guys. When I asked him if I can do my own project at the end of the course, he said you have to choose at least one from the four but you also get to work on projects in collaboration with IBM. This was the third false promise, in fact a big lie.
After this I was excited and enrolled in the course. I had like 20 days before the live classes started. I logged in and I saw these prerequisites, Linux and Java courses which are highly recommended to complete before starting the blockchain course.
Prerequisite Courses:
The Linux course was quite good. I completed it in a week. The Java course on the other hand was very very random and had no structure to it at all. Even the PDFs that came with it were different and had no connection with the videos. Still, I tried to do it, but after finishing 30% I just understood that it was a total waste of time because the topics were being taught at random and nothing made sense.
After that the live classes started and the first month was really good except the
EMI Issue:
The next month I checked if the first month’s Emi was debited properly or not. To my surprise there were multiple fines on the account. The bank had tried to debit the full amount. This was surprising since I had opted for ShopSe No cost Emi option of 12 months available on Simplilearn to pay the full amount. When I said this to the bank they said this was a fault from the merchant side as they have not received any Emi request and asked me to contact simplilearn.
I sent simplilearn bank statements and everything that was asked of me and kept asking them to update me and they kept telling me that I will get a call the next day with some excuse or the other but I finally got a call after 4-5 days. It was from ShopSe and they directly said this was the bank's fault. Now again when I called the bank to say the same, they said it was the merchant's fault. Atleast the bank took the extra step of rechecking and calling me back by themselves and confirming that they had received no such request. ShopSe never called back. I had to call them multiple times and wait in the long waiting time and maybe once someone would pick up after 4-5 times. Anyways this to and forth kept happening for a couple of weeks. No one from simplilearn helped. It was a nightmare. It was mentally taxing and borderline harassment.
But since the first month’s classes were going quite well, I thought of focusing on that instead. I had to change it to Emi myself and pay around 8000-9000 rupees fine for an issue caused by simplilearn and their payment partner.
The Second Month:
This is where all the main course related issues started. From the first class the instructor told us that we need to know JavaScript, html, CSS, nodejs and some programming language like Java or C or Python to understand Hyperledger coding. Remember the first false promise. They had promised I don’t need to know any coding and everything will be taught from scratch. If they had just told the truth I could have taken a 3 months JavaScript, HTML, CSS course and then joined this course. I was not in any hurry unlike the simplilearn guy who was probably in a hurry to make a sale.
Code Copy Pasting:
From the next classes I saw most of the code was copy pasted from word files. I understand what most coders do is copy paste codes from here and there but that works only if you have the fundamentals right otherwise it is impossible to debug. The ppt/pdfs which had basic coding concepts were completely rushed to finish in a day or two. Only chain code deployment was done properly but even in that the java code we just copy pasted. Basically, coding was not taught, only how to deploy if you have a ready-made code. Only if someone asked a doubt regarding the code, the instructor cleared it. But how do you expect someone with no knowledge of coding to ask a doubt with so many lines of code?
Marketed as 4 months course finished in 2 months:
I don’t blame the instructors. They did well in pulling off what was marketed as a 4 months course in 2 months. I had not written a single program in Solidity or in Java by myself nor did I have any confidence to write one. But I could deploy one if someone provided me with the code. That part also I learnt because that part was taught for at least 4 classes(50% time of the second module).
If the course was of two months why would they market it as 4 months. If I knew before it was 2 months, I would not have taken it. It is just impossible to go from zero to good coding in multiple languages in just 1 month/8 classes(of the second module).
Community:
Another issue was the community. They don’t allow the students to build a community which is really funny because the whole blockchain/crypto/web3 ecosystem is built on communities. Their community is a mess. No wonder it was like an abandoned city. No subtopics or subforums. Random posts from random courses were there. I tried using it but ended up getting lost. So if they cannot build a simple forum at least should have allowed us to build our own community in Discord so that we can learn from each other.
For the project I got a review that some functionalities were missing so I asked support what they were. It took them 2 months and a lot of mails to just say in the end that nothing was missing.
Now after the course finished they promise job support. It’s been 2 months and even after multiple mails I haven’t received my ‘pro’ membership on their partner job portal. Probably another false marketing scheme.
So, I would recommend you guys not to take the course just for the IIT name. You will get like 2 masterclasses from IIT faculty. The selflearning videos are already available for free on NPTEL portal.
Rather learn from free resources like Coursera, Buildspace or freecodecamp.org. Much better support from the community! My doubts get cleared in like an hour or so in the freecodecamp github community or discord community. You can also check out Udemy or Consensys academy but I haven’t taken their paid course so can’t vouch for them.
Please don’t waste~1.5 lakhs on a bad course and platform. There are much better alternatives out there both free and paid.