Custom Writing Service Blog » Web Reviews: Tough, Objective

Web Review: AcademicSuperstore.com

Jack Milgram — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:02:01 +0000

As you can see from our previous review, we are focusing on the topic of purchasing software online – specifically, offers that appeal to students.

Many students spend hours searching online for the best deal. Eventually, many of them end up at websites such as the one we are examining today – AcademicSuperstore.com. It advertises a great many attractive deals on popular software products such as PhotoShop (which we are using as our example to get a frame of reference).

The listed price is as cheap as the offers on the previously reviewed website. For instance, you can obtain PhotoShop for as little as a $194.95. This appears to me to represent a good deal.

Now, this is often as far as students look – they see an affordable price, and they grab it. Our review, however, is based on the information and feedback that we were able to locate online. Thus, our review is not biased: it is based on what we see online.

What we found was that this website reminded us all too closely of JourneyEd.com, reviewed earlier. Some of the reviews that we read, as well, even suggest that this site is connected to or affiliated with JourneyEd.com.

Usually, we try to address both the pros and cons of available websites, software, and applications. This time, however, we are going to take a more straightforward approach. This article will tell you what we think about the website and the service it offers, without offering a counterpoint to our opinion.

First of all, we want to note that the site advertises a great many deals, with substantial discounts. Because the website has been up and running for some time now, and generated quite a lot of online response and information, we can state confidently that their offers are legitimate. You will actually pay the price they list. This is an important point, because additional/hidden costs can ruin a purchase very handily.

Another important issue for customers is the website’s usability, however. If you are looking for a partner that can supply you steadily with software solutions over the long term, then this website might not be your best bet. It is, frankly, ugly, both in terms of usability and web design. Whenever we review an online service we always give our own website developers and IT specialists a chance to cast a professional eye over it and provide their feedback.

This website really made some of them smile. Why? Because this site is quite outdated in design and is not readily usable. The menu isn’t intuitive, the website itself, and how it’s set up are all decidedly old-fashioned.

Modern web design and web creation tools allow more creativity, which can actually help any site to attract customers. But this is not a website design review; it’s a review of how they operate, so let’s proceed.

As stated earlier – we base much of our reviews on what other users have had to say about a particular service online. Of course, we can’t test all businesses and services completely and make purchases with every website that we check. In this case, however, the buzz online was quite overwhelming. In such an instance, you can really feel the power of the Internet. A lot of people were greatly dissatisfied with the service and found AcademicSuperstore.com’s services to be unreliable.

For example, many users never received their orders. Some of them did not receive their refund in a timely fashion, and others weren’t even able to PLACE an order. The only positive reviews of the service were a couple of posts that seemed clearly to be marketing the site. For example, the site’s headquarters are located in Austin, Texas and several of the positive reviews originated from that same city. What are the odds of that, given that customers are presumably located all over the United States?

Conclusion

We would recommend our readers to think twice before purchasing from www.academicsuperstore.com. It might be safer to simply pay the additional $10 or $20, and receive the software solutions that you want, safely and securely, directly from the producer.

Web Review: JourneyEd.com

Jack Milgram — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:45:50 +0000

Over the last months and years, we’ve reviewed pages and pages of different educational websites for students. However, we realize that there is still stuff that we are missing.

If you are studying in the US/UK, you probably spend more than you would like to (or than your parents would prefer) on education-related, or personal, software. This can be costly. For example, if you are a design student, you will quite likely need Adobe PhotoShop.

This carries a price tag of over 500 dollars! For a student, this is way too much. Even for those who are long past their student years, this is a large sum for an independent designer or hobbyist to invest in a piece of software that might or might not pay for itself in new business!

However, there is a place on the web, created especially for students, teachers, and educational institutions, where you can find attractive software deals. It’s called JourneyEd.com, and it promises to save you a fistful of money. This is why sites such as this one seem to be luring in a great many students, all eager for savings. This may not always be the best choice, unfortunately.

Pros

The listed pricing is undeniably appealing. When I first checked out this website, I simply could not believe that it was actually there, and operating as a legitimate business.

For example, check out Adobe’s price for their project from their official website, starting at $199 (actual when the review was written). For dramatic contrast, here is JourneyEd.com’s price showing prices starting at $179.95 (actual when the review was written). That represents a 20 dollar savings right there, which seems like a sweet deal!

However, in order to obtain this discounted price on software, you need to provide proof of your current connection to an educational institution. You will be asked to send a scan of your student or faculty/staff identification card or equivalent documentation. They then perform their verification procedure. Before you make a purchase, do read what we have to say next.

Cons

The website has received a substantial number of negative reviews, and garnered distinctly critical feedback online. We, ourselves, found it not exactly easy to use. There are many eye-catching deals immediately visible on their site, but some of these, upon closer inspection, turn out to be less than fabulous. You can check out for yourself what people have to say about this website on SiteJabber.com and several other reputable review services.

One of the biggest dissatisfactions that people express is with the website’s customer support. People can wait for weeks to receive any sort of response. Sometimes the support team doesn’t respond properly or doesn’t react to all messages. This seems to be one of the most important issues with many reviewers.

Also, the JourneyEd.com seems to be making promises it cannot keep. A lot of its customers didn’t receive the products they have ordered, at all.

Of course, some people report that they have received a refund later on. But that still doesn’t make up for the customer’s effort and time wasted in trying to purchase the product, waiting, making inquiries, and then trying to obtain a refund. This sort of feedback is frequent enough to suggest that it has a sound basis in truth.

Also, we stumbled upon a very unusual review, which looked to us as though it was purely a commercial stunt. We just had to wonder; do ordinary consumers really write reviews like that? How many of us use paragraphs and bolded headings when writing a comment online? I don’t!

Furthermore, it is a marketing truism that people usually make the effort to go online to comment only when they have a complaint. This posting seems to be the only positive review that the site received. The commenter is a professor, so maybe that explains the formality of the review, but we continue to ponder it! The most charitable inference is that this was a particularly lucky customer who was so satisfied that she decided to write a gorgeous review with all the verbal skills at her professional disposal. Food for thought!

But then again, would a company that seems to confront such problems dare to be so socially active on the web? On the one hand, they have over 6,000 fans on Facebook, and a lively bunch they are! On the other hand, they don’t seem to be paying much attention to their audience – I can see numerous posts, but many are also not responded to, and seem to have been ignored.

Conclusion

Use this service with caution. Try contacting their support team before ordering and think twice before making an order, which in theory, and if all works as advertised, could save you some cash. It may not, however, be worth it. You were warned!

Web Review: Imendi.com

Jack Milgram — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:30:36 +0000

Have you ever had a situation when you are preparing to travel abroad, or for an important meeting with a business client from another country? I’m sure you have encountered at least one of the two. You are planning your trip, and realize that the language barrier might be a real problem. What should you do? Where should you go? Time is scarce and you don’t actually need to learn that much stuff, just some of the basics to help you manage daily life.

There is a solution for your problem. It’s called Imendi.com – it’s an online set of flash cards and tests, which offer you the basic foreign language learning experience. The service is pretty simple and at the same time helpful. For it to work, however, you have to be determined, and possess a great desire to learn the language.

The system is really basic. There isn’t that much to tell about it.

It offers you a series of flash cards with different words in different languages. You have to match those words with their meanings in English, or whatever your preferred language is (as long as your preference appears on the list of those languages that are available).

You can choose from a range of topics for your flash cards. There are 12 of them, starting from ‘Basic Conversation’, ‘Colors, Numbers’, and so on. The goal here is to equip you with a basic knowledge of the foreign language in the shortest time possible.

And what we like about this service is that it offers intuitive examples for the tests. Of course, this also might be just a simple coincidence, but what we mean by intuitive examples is that even when we didn’t know the correct answers, we could make successful inferences. This showed us just how exactly the languages are similar.

For example, chocolate in Portuguese is ‘chocolate’ (try saying it with a Portuguese/ Spanish accent). Or, doctor in Spanish is ‘doctor’ (also try pronouncing it with a Spanish accent, and the stress on the ultimate syllable). These are basic examples. But we hope that you get the point – many foreign languages (e.g., the Romance and Teutonic) have much in common with English, so learning something new will not only be useful, but straightforward as well. Figuring out pronunciation is your own responsibility, however, since there is no audio.

We should also talk about the dashboard, which was still not available when this review was written.

You can check out their website to see whether it has been posted. It will offer you the opportunity to track your learning progress, as well as custom study plans, based on your results.

But at this point we can’t actually see anything that indicates that you will need ANY sort of study plan. The service is a basic set of flash cards and limited functionality. It will only work as a basic tool to enhance your foreign language learning process. Additionally, the dashboard offered is still at the closed beta phase and should become available for a one-time fee.

Given all this, we think they will need to come up with something worth the $23 one-time fee, because at this point, the service is still primitive.

Conclusion

As a service for basic foreign language learning – Imendi.com does a good job. It will offer you a basic understanding of foreign language vocabulary and structure and could probably even help you when you go abroad.

However, the main downside of their offer is that all of it is visual and text-based – there are no audio guides, or even phonetic transcripts to give you an idea of how the words should be pronounced.

Web Review: Readfa.st

Jack Milgram — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:00:52 +0000

Is reading a problem? Is it tough to read important information fast enough? Are do you simply want to start reading faster because all those books are not going read themselves?

If your answer is yes, we’ve got a great tool for you to check out. It’s going to improve your reading skills. Plus, it’s fun. Our staff enjoyed it thoroughly, and that is not something you hear often about reading remediation! The name of the resource is Readfa.st. ‘Read Fast’ can be your personal trainer in the world of reading.

Pros

The great lessons and the great evaluation system. I personally liked the reading test – right at the beginning, this is aimed at testing your actual reading speed. As the test appears and disappears, you start getting a bit excited, as this reminds you of a sort of game. It seemed like a lot of fun to me.

After you’re done with the evaluation (you get to see your reading speed results), you get the chance to start your lessons. The system is pretty simple – the site offers you specific reading content, which you make your way through, increasing your speed over time.

Sadly, there is no magic system to make you read faster with without effort. Just as in the gym, you have to add weight to your exercise routine in order to make progress. No pain, no gain; you know that drill. It was reassuring to find my improvement in reading speed was more noticeable than any results I get from the gym (but of course, that is just me.

At first, I stumbled over a great many words, I even had to slow down the reading speed that was presented by the site, so that I could actually catch up. Then I had to take the test to verify my reading speed – it’s basic: you answer a couple questions about the text. Embarrassingly for me, I failed the first one, because, as I realized, I was concentrating too much on reading, without absorbing the content.

Everything about this service makes you want to go further and become a better reader. It offers you the chance to go through a number of articles in the same way you got through the test: by reading a text that appears and disappears on the screen.

Only this time, there is no pressure, you can pause, and stop the text from going in and out. The system will simply evaluate your speed to track your progress.

What I especially like about this reading tool, is that it offers some great content, unlike some of the common readers through which we all have suffered. You can find the latest articles from popular online resources. For example, one of the recent ones I’ve read had the following title – “How to Tell Someone You Don’t Like Them (Without Being an A**hole)”, posted at Life Hacker. As you can tell by the name of the article, this is pretty entertaining. You can stop and continue reading later on – it’s all up to you.

It offers you badges for reading, creating a gaming effect, when you want to progress level by level faster. It also allows you to establish online friendships and invite your friends to the resource. You can check out which articles they’re reading and how they match up with you in terms of reading speed. You can also create our own topics, and create your own feeds to read the news that you find interesting to read. This makes the whole process even more pleasurable.

Conclusion

Definitely check out this service. It should improve your reading skills in a pleasant and informative manner.

Web Review: MyFoliotek.com

Jack Milgram — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:42:51 +0000

A lot of students face the same problem after graduation – finding the right job, at least for the start. There are also internship opportunities to consider, which provide valuable experience, so much needed for your future career. The bottom line? Landing a good starting job may be decisive for you.

One of the most important pieces of this puzzle is your resume, or more appropriately for this article – your portfolio. The tool that we are going to tell you about today is going to help you in creating your unique online identity , and should become a great addition to your LinkedIn.com page (if you have one). It’s called – MyFoliotek.com

But there is more this system than just a service for students – how about a complex system that allows faculty to assemble elaborate student portfolios and evaluate them. Student assessment has never been easier. Read the rest of the article to find out more.

Of course, one of the most convenient options that this service offers is the customization of the portfolio. You can change a lot of stuff; for some of us who used their product, the customization seemed even a bit too complex. It was almost like PhotoShop.

Don’t be scared, however. The menu is quite intuitive and should not present problems in learning how to use it. You can use this functionality separately, or you can use it as part of the whole package. There are an attractive range of options in the MyFoliotek.com system.

One of the most important products that Foliotek offers is the ‘Student Account’ – imagine a place, where all of your academic works are graded, tracked and evaluated. The system is rather simple, and at the same time complex (it has a lot of layers and a lot of key points, which make this a great educational solution). This is a stable, long-term web presence for your work, separate from any school account, which might not last past graduation.

They have everything here – your works, uploaded according to the requirements for a certain academic period, their grading by your tutors and evaluation of your overall progress, and a place for comments and notes, which can help you to improve in the future.

The system covers all bases; imagine it as an online facility, where all of your academic data is stored, both the visual materials, and the assessments. (They also offer institutional and faculty portfolios.) If you want to find out more, you might want to visit their website and check out their video tutorials, which are in-depth and on topic. We’ve learned a great deal from their product simply by watching the instructional videos, which is rare – most of similar instructional videos that we had to deal with were abstract and vague.

In the end, what a student receives is a comprehensive, complex and beautifully presented portfolio, with all of this papers, presentations, charts, etc. – in one place. What the faculty receives is a convenient data gathering tool, which offers great flexibility and functionality. When it comes time for school accreditation, grant proposals, or job hunting, users will be grateful for what Foliotek has to offer.

We also liked their online presence – they have a number of social media accounts that aren’t that popular at this time. But we assume, since this is just a start-up, things are going to change in the future. At this point, the accounts are being updated on a frequent basis and that’s enough for us.

Conclusion

My.Foliotek.com – might be a great tool for your personal resume. It can help you with creating a personal portfolio, and it can help your school with managing your data. But we have a persistent concern that the system still looks quite complex for the majority of the users: always assuming, of course, that our reviewers represent the average online user. Good luck with your academic efforts!

As always – subscribe to our updates, follow us on Twitter for great educational and personal advise and join our Facebook community, which is filled with academic tips & tricks and reviews of other useful services and software solutions!

Web Review: Advisu.com

Jack Milgram — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:26:27 +0000

We all know that there are numerous counseling services on the Internet. Some of them are good, and some of them are bad. One important thing about them is that people still think that they can find a lot more information and learn something by themselves, online. Of course, this is the situation for many Internet users: they can find most of what they need online.

However, it is impossible to overestimate the value of a personal, tailored, approach. Imagine that during all those years of study in various educational institutions, at any level, you had had the chance to ask all the questions that occurred to you, even the dumbest ones, without worrying about being ashamed in front of the class?! I am certain that many people fall behind in school for exactly this reason.

Advisu.com is a service that matches you with a personal, private advisor or tutor on any specific topic that might interest you.

Pros

We specifically like the abundance of available topics: it’s not only educational assistance that is on offer. You can get a tutoring session as well. If you are an IT student, or want to become one, the service offers a whole host of tutors who specialize in computer sciences

Perhaps, on the other hand, you simply want to learn how to get your computer going again and you would like to avoid future repair bills. Well, this site has an option for you. There are plenty of topics to choose from, and the best thing is that you are free to try negotiating a desirable price for the exact service you need. For example, say you want to learn how to install a new operating system on your computer, and you can see a couple of available tutors/instructors listed with expertise in this area. Contact all of them offering the same price for their time, and see which one will agree or make an attractive counter-offer.

You should probably also first check out the prices charged by your local repair services, so you know what to offer in terms of price range.

Perhaps you are looking for travel advice; there are advisors registered with Advisu.com who can help you with your quest.

Cons

Some of the categories available at the site do not list any advisors available; for example, some of the educational niches were empty. But keep in mind that this is a start-up, right now, as I write this article. You might find it to be a totally different site by the time you’ll be reading this!

We also didn’t like the fact that there isn’t very much information about the site itself – the About Us page is pretty limited (it’s actually a simple pop-up window), as is the rest of the site. This is very frustrating, especially when you are trying to write a well thought through review. The same criticism would apply to their social destinations – none of these are available.

Another down side is that the site wasn’t working properly the whole time: we had to request the action code to be re-sent. The categories on the site weren’t opening properly, and had glitches. It looks like someone wasn’t optimizing for Chrome – shame on them!

Conclusion

You should definitely check out this service as a tutoring option, but make sure to ask questions before actually paying for anything. Check the educational and professional background of the available advisors before actually ordering their services.

Web Review: IWillStudy.com

Jack Milgram — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 08:38:34 +0000

It is often the case that not all students graduate with equal technology skills. This can be the result of inadequate equipment and instruction in school due to a lack of funds or foresight on the part of school administration. It can also result from kids paying little attention to such instruction because it does not seem fun or relevant (although we all know that young people pick up on technology for games or chatting with lightning speed).

Then, unfortunately, when these same young people need to demonstrate their technical skills, they have little to show in terms of competence. This is deadly to career prospects in a world where virtually every job, from warehouse worker to brain surgeon, involves interacting with IT.

Well there is good news for you – there is a great community online that allows you to learn the basics of some of the newly created disciplines in IT, for example, SEO copywriting, and social media management. These are outgrowths of the computer revolution, and have acquired something of a life of their own.

They certainly have not been discussed formally in schools for the most part! The online destination we are discussing will help you acquire that additional IT knowledge that was lacking from your previous education. This knowledge is crucial to any manager. The name of the site is iWillStudy.com.

Pros
The operating principle of this community is fairly simple – users gather for online discussion of topics based on shared interests. As this is an IT-specialized website, you will see categories such as: Dot Net Technologies, Web Development, Search Engine Optimization, etc. You can browse through the groups, and join any that seem useful, to receive the updates.

The best part about this is that people come here to find relevant and, most of the time educational, information concerning a certain IT topic. There is an advantage to the fact that the information is generated by the users of the particular group and/or by the administrator of the group.

This means that the content is targeted at others who are learning at the most basic stage, or expanding their knowledge where it is limited, not super-experts who already understand it all. Basically – the content is targeted at you.

You can start discussions on certain topics, and you can expect people, who are already good at that particular area, to explain everything to you.

We liked the number of available topics and the diversified discussions on each one of them. By simply joining a group and reading the information that is already available there, you can pick up a great deal of useful tips. And remember: all of this is free!

Cons
Of course, there is a lot of available information on the site, but one of the most important drawbacks for this community is the refresh rate of each one of these topics. The information is being added once a week for the most active groups and it takes longer and longer for the new updates to be posted in groups that aren’t that active.

So if you are a starter in any of the particular IT areas already displayed on the site – you will have enough info to get you started and get you to an intermediate level. But, if you want to advance – you may have to find a more sophisticated resource. The social destinations for this site are not available, which means the site is definitely under managed.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a good place to start your IT online education – iWillStudy.com might be the one. It has tons of information for people who just want to jump into the IT sphere and have found that they need to broaden their technical vocabulary. This place also benefits from a community that is actively engaged with the content, although somewhat less so in frequency of postings.

Web Review: EaStudyMasters.com

Jack Milgram — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:55:51 +0000

Education is one of the toughest choices anyone makes in their life. We all hear unending advice from family, friends, co-workers, neighbours, and anyone else who wants to add their two cents.

You also build up an image of your dream job, based on the stereotypes that are presented out there by the media and other sources. In this hostile and challenging environment, anyone who manages to choose their education wisely, based on a true assessment of their abilities, desires, and the marketplace, is truly blessed.

It would be great to get some sound advice on what your educational alternatives are, and what the financial implications of each one are, from specialists in education, wouldn’t it? Well, I have good news for you – there is a great service that can help you with exactly that. It’s called EaStudyMasters.com, and it aims to provide information about the potential of various educational paths, particularly in the USA.

Pros

First of all, we want to observe that the system is pretty straightforward. The site contains many pages of useful information. The most useful for most people first browsing this resource, is the “educational calculator” (that is our name for it).

There are a lot of useful informational blocks available on the website. But the most useful, for people who have just started to browse the resource will be the ‘educational calculator’ – at least that’s how we call it.

It is readily visible in the right sidebar. It offers potential solutions for your future career. You fill out the form, register with the site, and wait for an informational newsletter, tailored to your responses/choices.

The site is largely informational, and thus contains a substantial number of pages covering a wide range of educational issues, from Federal loans to military benefits, and accreditation to application requirements.

It also offers displays a list of top-paying careers by educational background. The list of careers is quite limited, and seems to entirely ignore whole disciplines, but it will give you a picture of your possible educational options if your field is represented.

Their page on the admission process is also great. It’s not very extensive, but clear and informative. We also found their blog to be useful for people searching for options for further education.

The website will be of great help to international students. Of course, you have to go through the registration process, but it is definitely worth it.

It’s important to mention that the website concentrates on educational programs at the Masters level and beyond. Thus, it is geared towards those who are already graduated, working, and considering additional education in order to qualify for a better position and pay.

Cons

The website might be a bit confusing. You have to spend some time simply investigating the home page to be able to navigate around it – it’s not intuitive. But, to be fair, everything is there, and none of the important info is hidden from you.

We weren’t able to contact their support department, and received no confirmation after registering. We don’t know if this is a technical issue, but it is frustrating.

Additionally, their social destinations seem practically abandoned, with no updates for a month or more, no actual Twitter following, and a rather small number of Facebook fans.

The text is clearly written by someone for whom English is a second language, an inference supported by their statement that some portion of their firm is located in Chennai and Kolkata. This may not be a problem, but it is wise to be aware of the background and perspective of anyone giving advice about something as important as this.

Conclusion

EaStudyMasters.com offers a useful service for students searching for further educational opportunities. It is also helpful for folks in the workplace who now find that they need more education. This site is a good place to start the search process for both degree programs and professional pathways. Good luck with your education and have a great day!

Web Review: PeerTransfer.com

Jack Milgram — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:16:23 +0000

As you’ve probably already noticed, we pay a great deal of attention to the issues faced by international students/exchange students who come to the USA and UK in search of a prestigious and substantive education. This is why many of our blog articles cover start-ups and ideas relevant to this category of student. Why exactly? We see that studying abroad can be a major challenge.

One of the major issues confronted by foreign students is financing their education. Most local students don’t receive financial aid, and an even tinier fraction of foreign students receive scholarships, and those are real superstars in their fields.

For the majority of international students, it is their parents who pick up the tab for their tuition and related expenses. This can often pose problems, because transfers of large sums of money to foreign banks can be cumbersome and the fees charged are very high.

However, there is a great start-up service that can save you money on both exchange rates and fees, ensure peace of mind, and protect your privacy. The service is called PeerTransfer.com

Pros

The service is great for students who pay the annual tuition every year. For those who pay for their tuition on some other basis or have taken out an educational loan – Peer Transfer.com is not an option.

If you are paying for a 4 to 5 year educational program, you could save as much as 10% for the whole period. If, for example, your annual tuition is 25,000 dollars, you could save nearly 700 dollars a year. This, of course, would depend on the exchange rates prevailing in the market. For more information you can visit the website of the service and check out the savings calculator available on the home page.

How is this service any different from that provided by other transfer agents, for example, banks? Well, according to the information available on their website, they have a stand-alone system for transfers, which is more efficient than those used by banks. For banks, money transfers are merely one among many ways that they make a profit. For PeerTransfer.com, this is the firm’s main business; they specialize in tuition payments. This is why they use a customized system, and are more expert in this activity than banks, which simply see this as a profit center.

Additionally, their service is generally more client-friendly than the banks – this is the business concept to which they adhere.

Cons

One of the major disadvantages of this service is that many colleges are not yet affiliated with it. At this time, the number of colleges is limited to less than a dozen.

Editor’s note: we’ve been contacted by one of the representatives from PeerTransfer.com, as you can see from the comments section. As it turned out, currently they cooperate with around 60 schools in the US, and the number is growing exponentially.

Of course, this does not even remotely cover the hundreds of educational institutions that accept international students.

However, they offer a way for you to alert your college/university to the availability of PeerTransfer.com and request that they partner with the service. As far as we were able to find, there are no specific obligations imposed on your institution. For all we know – your institution could sign up with PeerTransfer.com even if you are the sole student who uses the service. For more information on how to get your college enrolled as a partner with the service, please contact their support team.

Conclusion

PeerTransfer.com is a great resource for foreign students and if your parents are transferring your tuition to your college every year, this might offer a great way to save several thousand dollars over the whole span of your education.

Find out more from your college and PeerTransfer.com support – you can learn how to encourage your college to sign on, and compare your transfer costs on their site. Good luck and we wish you a cheaper education.

Web Review: Fatminds.com

Jack Milgram — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 09:07:38 +0000

In the current economy, experts predict that most of us will have several sequential careers, and, if you are aware of this, you may have contemplated a second course of education to make yourself more marketable.

Especially if you are a ‘senior’ student, this issue becomes even more pressing – your choice of where to go, what to take in which combination, and what to do first all, may confuse you. You have probably already done a mass of research online and pored over directories offering course information.

Sadly, most of these online directories omit a great deal of crucial information (believe us – we’ve checked more than a few). For example, some of them don’t have full course information, some of them are simple course descriptions, without any links to the actual course and some of them take you to a malware page (yes, we’ve gone that far in our research).

However, the resource we are going to talk about here has features that address many of these deficiencies. The name could be a bit hard to swallow for some of you: Fatminds.com

Pros

First, and most important – the course database: Fatminds.com displays more than 20,000 courses to for you to consider. Pretty impressive, huh?

Additionally, one of the greatest features is how up to date most of the courses are – we’ve checked many of them, and all of them could be verified as currently offered for enrolment, with all their relevant information available for students to check. We can’t say the same thing about other course databases/directories – some of the courses that we’ve checked were long gone from the actual course rosters of the educational establishments.

To be fair – we can’t physically check all of the courses at Fatminds.com, so we can’t safely state that absolutely everything is entirely up-to-date, but what we did see was impressive.

The usability of the directory was also satisfying. The navigation tools available in the directory allowed us to filter out any unnecessary courses with alacrity. Thus, in a matter of minutes we were able to find something appealing. The search also allows you to look for courses near you geographically (available for registered users).

You can also “follow” specific courses – after your sign up, and your identification of a course in which you are particularly interested, you can “follow” it and automatically receive updates about the course (schedules, details, or cancellation notices).
This is particularly useful in case you’ve just started looking for a course because this option will help you to make a decision further down the road. You’re going to be updated on all of the courses that you might be interested in, without the need of going to the course website and searching for the newest information there.

Cons

We found that some of the features were a bit useless – the keyword search isn’t that effective and the results weren’t precise.

When you go to your profile – there’s an error message about incorrect login (or so it seems). Of course, we understand that the start-up is still in the beta testing phase. However, we note that when Gmail appeared in beta – it was a final product and a lot of other start-ups do care about making the beta version as final as possible.

Some of the major colleges are missing – you won’t find courses from the Ivy League colleges (or most of them), you won’t find courses from a lot of regional colleges: again, this service is still in its beta stage, and we should acknowledge the complexity of the job they’re undertaking.

Conclusion

If you are looking for the right courses, available online and near you – this service might be one of the best solutions available on the market. We are sure, that you can find something suitable on their website. Fatminds.com is a great option for people who are seeking for summer courses or courses that can help them to enhance their professional qualifications.