Project Management - STD credits or Google Certifications

[DavidGood]

Good afternoon -

I am about at the end of what I can do on Sophia. Excluding Spanish, I have about a week left.

If I do nothing else, I will (should) have 43 hours to go when I start @ UMPI in October.

Question:

For a PM degree, could someone "in the know" please advise which is better:

1) getting one or more certifications via google / Coursera 
- or -
2) taking a few classes at Study.com

Certs certainly pull some weight when looking for PM work, but I want to make sure I have time to finish them before the 'official' curriculum starts. The goal, as with all of us, is to be as close to 30 hours required as possible on my UMPI start date. Also, I have plenty of electives, so when the google PM cert says it comes in as:

"GOOG 0003: Google Project Management Professional Certificate ** transfers in as: 3 credits BUS 400, 3 credits BUS 3XX, and 3 Credits BUS 1XX (business electives)"

the only thing of value for graduation is BUS 400.

I'd like to be one of those people who finishes UMPI in 8 weeks so that I can move on to MAOL.

Thanks in advance for your wisdom.

[ss20ts]

This is something that only you can decide. Do you need the additional credits? Will the certification help you at work?

[mohelena02]

In my personal opinion (which you asked) as someone who is an actual project manager, no certifications matter beyond the PMP in the U.S. I have the Google PM one and no employer has ever cared about it. You can however use that certification as a pre-req required for you to test for the PMP.
That course is pretty lengthy though, so not sure if you will have enough time to finish..

[csmith11]

  Photo.pdf (Size: 521.69 KB / Downloads: 37)

After recently starting a few Study.com courses I find that the google certs can be completed much faster. It’s really up to you, If the google cert fills a requirement and you need a few more electives go that route, or if you just want the 1-1 course with study. I’ll attach the eval I just got back.

[DavidGood]

After recently starting a few Study.com courses I find that the google certs can be completed much faster. It’s really up to you, If the google cert fills a requirement and you need a few more electives go that route, or if you just want the 1-1 course with study. I’ll attach the eval I just got back.

Thank you for that. 

How long did the google project management cert take you? How was the process?

My concern is not having the time to finish it before Oct start at UMPI.

[Hotdogman1]

I did it in 3 weeks via the American Dream Academy (now gone). I did 2x speed video and skipped all optional content. You can retake the exams as many times as you like. I do remember the IBM certs having a 24 hour cool-down after every third retake, but I don't remember if the Google ones did so as well.
My younger brother completed it within the 7 day week trial by skipping all the content and just doing the quizzes and projects.
My best friend took 4 months but he was working full time and was taking his time with it.

I would recommend actually learning the content as it was informative, but you can always brute force it to meet the deadline.

[tdat314]

I have taken most of the available Google certifications at this point. The project management one is not really difficult aside from the peer reviewed assignments at the end of modules. I had two occasions where i received a failing grade on these assignments from peers solely due to the the fact that they were not native English speakers. The commentary revealed this and showed misplaced views on what was expected compared to what I submitted. I simply resubmitted my assignments unchanged and hoped for a better peer selection the next time. With native speakers, or at least learned speakers with a better grasp of what I can only assume to call semantics, I received perfect scores after that.

I would mention that the PM one is rather lingo heavy and might be daunting for someone not familiar with the terms or practiced in there actual use.