There are various avenues available to explore and learn in today’s world, whether through a college program, leisure reading, YouTube how-to videos, or online courses. Of the possibilities, each could come with its own advantages and disadvantages that bear looking into before you decide which direction is right for you and your goals. It could be, for instance, that a bachelor’s degree isn’t needed to gain the skills you’ll need to better your business or abilities at a certain hobby. For those instances where a degree doesn’t need to be in hand, you might find that other educational avenues are preferable options over signing up for four years at a university. That’s where websites like Craftsy come into play.
What is Craftsy, you might ask? It’s a site that’s built primarily around its namesake—crafting—and it’s designed to assist learners to embrace and grow in a number of specific interests, like sewing, baking, and drawing. This assistance comes in a variety of forms, including blogs for different interests and supplies for hobby pursuits. If you want to learn to decorate cakes, as an example, you can buy flower molds and piping equipment to prepare you for that task. Overall, it’s a website that anyone whose hobbies are represented there would find useful at different levels of expertise.
It sounds fantastic, but as with any decision that could impact your future, considering the pros and cons involved is a sound strategy to decide if the choice is right for you. With that in mind, let’s dive into those pros and cons through this review of Craftsy’s learning possibilities, and by the end, you’ll be better equipped to make the right decision about whether or not the approach to learning is a good fit for your goals.
Beginning with the pros, several exist for this website. As I mentioned earlier, there are a number of topics showcased on the site, and though they often share a common trait of creativity, they’re assorted. There are nineteen topics covered on Craftsy, and they range from knitting to gardening, jewelry making to weight loss, embroidery to wood crafting. If you have any sort of interest in creativity or food then, you could find something to catch your eye among their classes. For that variety, Craftsy gets one point in the pro category!
Studying those topics on Craftsy not only comes with those varied possibilities, but also allows you to learn completely online, which means that you can partake in the course at your leisure once you purchase it. You won’t need to worry about making it to a classroom on time. You can simply watch while you’re sitting on your couch at four in the morning, if you’d like, and get the same amount of education from the video that someone sitting in a university’s library at noon could attain. It’s so flexible, and that earns Craftsy another pro-point.
But in order to purchase the right course, you need to first find the right course, and luckily Craftsy is wonderful in this regard as well. The menu at the top of the screen allows you to select the category you want to explore, and if you don’t see a specific one listed, you can click on the one farthest to the right for a series of further options to appear. Sounds simple, right? Well, it gets better! Once the category has been selected, a secondary line of options will appear beneath the first one to allow you to choose what aspect of that topic you want to explore. If you intend to read the blog, you can click on that link. If you’re planning to purchase a course, you can choose that one with a simple click as well. Since this is a review primarily of Craftsy as a learning tool, we’ll focus mostly on the course option, but be aware that finding your way to other possibilities is easy on the site!
After you’ve chosen the course option, a series of filters will show up on left side of the screen that you can use to further narrow your search. Let’s say you chose to take a quilting course. After you get to that main page, the filter possibilities will include what level of learner you are, what technique you’re looking to learn, what kind of project you want to make, what style of quilt you’re interested in, and what price you’re looking for. If you only want to know about wall quilts through classes under $50, you’d need to specify those details through those filters, and the results that show up will fulfill your course qualifications. You can further tailor the results by changing the order the results are listed in. To do that, click on the “Sort by” filter above the results, and then decide if you want to see your narrowed-down options from the cheapest to the most expensive, the most recommended to the least recommended, etc. The process is so convenient and organized, Craftsy gets another pro-point!
Another advantage to the site is the detail already mentioned about being able to buy supplies there. It’s one thing to take a course. It’s another thing to buy supplies to enable you to perform the skill you’re planning to learn without having to go to any other website. Again, this is convenient, and since it can come in the form of impressive project kits for quilting, sewing, and knitting, the convenience can literally be a beautiful thing. So for being able to buy supplies and kits through the site, Craftsy gets one more point in its favor.
But as could be the case for any educational pursuit, this one does come with a flaw or two. Specifically, you do have to buy these courses and kits, and some of those purchases can be fairly pricey—particularly the kits. Quilting kits, for example, can range from around $14 to over $250. While the projects might be beautiful, over $250 for a kit can feel a bit high. Of course, you should consider how much the pieces of the kit separately would have cost, but it’s still a high number for learners to have thrown their way. The quilting classes range from just under $10 to just under $100, which is a stretch that includes fairly reasonable to haltingly high. For those higher prices, Craftsy hereby gets its first con-point in this review.
Another disadvantage would be that while there are a variety of hobbies to explore in classes, in the grand scheme of things, there are still a number left unrepresented on Craftsy. For starters, little beyond crafting and fitness/nutrition is covered, so if you want to do something of a different nature, you might have to try another avenue to learn your trade. Even in regard to crafting and creative possibilities, Craftsy still has certain voids that could leave you needing to seek elsewhere for guidance. If you want to perfect your skills at floral arrangement or pastel art, for instance, you might not find courses there to help you. Perhaps the people behind Craftsy will someday explore other craft possibilities on the site, but for now, the empty spaces in possibility are another negative aspect.
What might be the most noteworthy disadvantage for this site though falls in the category of rewards for your efforts. This isn’t an accredited school where you can earn a degree, and you shouldn’t expect to get a diploma in the mail if you successfully complete a course. If you’re looking to get that kind of confirmation that you learned your craft, this isn’t the right option for you. Rather, this is more for those who are looking to build their skills for improvement. So for that lack of reward system and accreditation, Craftsy earns yet another point for the con category.
That leaves us with 4 pros and 3 cons, which means that it’s a close call that falls in the favor of Craftsy. What it really comes down to though is what your purpose is for taking the course. If you don’t need that degree and just want to better yourself with a skill, so long as you can afford the courses, this is a great option! But if you need something cheaper with a more concrete reward system, you might want to keep looking for your educational avenue.
Source – GiftsAndSpecialOccasions.com