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This was a great way for me to familiarize myself with the basic concepts of cybersecurity and IT which include the CIA Triad and what each of the letters mean, firewalls and the purposes, the basics of cryptography, the history and importance of cybersecurity in the late 20th and 21st Centuries, the types of malware and security and data breaches and how to combat them, various cybersecurity and IT resources, tools and online articles, and the careers one can start in Cybersecurity and IT.

The only critique I have with this course is that spelling and sentence structure in the paragraphs below some of the videos could be edited so that notes can be easier to read and understand in preparation for quizzes. I also do think some questions in some of the practice quizzes and end of the week quizzes could be worded better or could've been discussed more in the chapters.

Despite this, I plan to continue with the next 3 courses to earn my certificate. I recommend this course to any college students, college graduates or those thinking of switching to IT and Cybersecurity fields.

Some of the teachers could be better, as have more visually associated learning material rather than just expecting the user to listen to them talk. I mean by making a video of situation and shower the user how it's done in real life instead of just showing a chart. A fake situation could have been created to demonstrate this. Not everybody remembers what people say very well. Sometimes transcripts or subtitles didn't help because of the accents of speakers and the translation was wrong or marked inaudible where you actually needed the help udnerstanding it.

However, it is not a bad short course, but the time limitation actually kind of makes it such a crunch time it can get on the nerves struggling to learn the contents for the quiz. There was actually a lot of good information presented and helpful links, some of the reading materials were kind of long so it was hard to get through the entire thing but is great for understanding basic concepts. It is also a good thing for people who want experience to help them get a job.

New to the "Certificate" world better known as MOOC Certificates. Yall be sure to go read about MOOC's before you advance in any sort of learning program like this. Just remember its a non-credit course, and I foudn this from Coursea Support:

"The “non-credit” course will not give you any academic credit towards your college/university. Nothing is mentioned about any certificate approval or non-approval from the actual course creators, neither from Coursera."

This sections wasn't too bad, had a few ending quizzes that got me but understood why after re-reading the questions. I would say the worst part of this course is there are tons of transcript issues that you will see, misspelled words in quizzes and MAINLY how hard it is to understand some of these people with heavy heavy accents and horrible microphones! I would say this course needs a lot of updating in all aspects of the lesson to make a better understanding of the Introduciton to Cybersecurity Tools & Cyber Attacks.

There is a lot of useful information here and ultimately it serves its purpose well. However, the quality of the teaching materials is uneven. Some slides are much too dense (I marked a couple of those videos in individual feedback), and much of the course is very dry. There are some gems though: the critical thinking materials in week 1 are truly original and worthwhile even to someone who already knows computer security. The teaching method they use - grounding the topic in an interesting example, and inviting the audience to think about it in advance, is a great teaching method. The course could be improved by extending it to other sections.

It would sure help if your speakers had some knowledge of the English language. The men, in particular, were generally semi-literate: minimal familiarity with syntax, idiom, pronunciation, and general rules of grammar. Thankfully, the videos narrated by women were better. Course content is good, but again, PRESENTATION skills are important (IF you want people to learn easily) so repetition of a phrase immediately following its vocalization is NOT good; "um" is not a word; and technical proficiency is NOT a substitute for sound teaching methodology! Learn from your mistakes!

Overall, this is a pretty good course and I learned a lot. The biggest objection I have is that sometimes I could NOT understand some of the speakers and the transcript was not much help in those situations (the transcript might say something like "inaudible"). I also have many years' experience in the IT field (mainly in applications, operating systems, compilers, not in cybersecurity) so I understood many references but I could understand where some less experienced individuals might not understand all references. But, overall, I would recommend the course.

The excellent knowledge and information is held back by occasional mic quality of the educators and in some cases, inexperience in speaking. The documented texts of their lessons mitigates these problems in most cases, but when a speaker's speech is free-flowing, it can be difficult to follow even while reading and in some instances, the computer itself misinterprets a word or simply fails to understand the word itself. Overall, a strong course that teaches the basics of Cybersecurity. Learned a lot and hope to learn more.