The official guide to courses by Straighterline, Study, et al: We want YOUR input!

[jsh1138]

Provider: Study.com
Course: History 306: The American Civil War Era
Course content:  Normal Study.com format
Final exam format: 100 multiple choice plus essays
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The course prepares you for the final 
Time taken on course:  a couple weeks in between other stuff. I'm sure i could have done it in 2 days, given that it was mostly complete after the LL Civil War course I did earlier
Familiarity with subject before course: Very familiar
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  In terms of actually teaching me things that I found interesting, this is probably the best Study.com course I have taken so far, out of 20ish. There are some mistakes on it, like they call Lincoln a Senator and say Jefferson Davis committed treason, but all in all this is a very balanced and nuanced course that does a great job of showing you both sides of the conflict. The LL Study.com version is biased against the South to an annoying (if understandable) degree, and this one is not like that, at all. It shows how the conflict started with President Adams and Jefferson and went from there and how in alot of ways it was inevitable no matter what anyone on either side did, but also what each side did to bring it to reality. This was my 4th college-level Civil War course and obviously its also covered in American History, and of the 5 this one is the best, by far. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 3 maybe? its not hard if you've done the previous course and American History because you'll know the broad outline of most everything that's being talked about, this run through is just more detailed.

[jsh1138]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Computer Science 102: Fundamentals of IT
Course content:  Normal Study.com format
Final exam format: 70 multiple choice plus essays
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The course prepares you for the final 
Time taken on course: 2 days
Familiarity with subject before course: pretty familiar
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  about half of this is really simple stuff like "what's a vlog" or "what's a wiki". the other half is about information systems and project development, specifically agile development and scrum and stuff like that. if you're familiar with those this will be a breeze
1-10 Difficulty level: 2

[jsh1138]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Computer Science 103: Computer Concepts & Applications
Course content:  Normal Study.com format
Final exam format: 70 multiple choice plus essays
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The course prepares you for the final 
Time taken on course: a few days
Familiarity with subject before course: pretty familiar
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know:  a third of this course is devoted to Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. If you are familiar with those, you are in luck. If not, you may find it incredibly tedious to go through quiz after quiz on what heading you have to click on to get X to happen. Other than that, this course wasn't to bad. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 3-4

[msllaneous]

A big shout-out and “thank you” to those who have contributed to this thread so far! I have been on a forced hiatus due to health struggles, however I am going to be jumping back in again soon and I have found this feedback to be very valuable.

Cheers!
D

[fork]

Provider: study.com
Course: Principles of Finance 101
Course content: Videos and transcripts, quizzes and a proctored final exam
Final exam format: 100 multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The questions on the final exam were similar to the questions in the quizzes and practice tests. I don't know if it gives everyone a different exam from randomly selected questions but mine had a lot of questions about stock dilution. It also had a duplicate question. Exact same question later in the exam. You will need to know some of the formulas: present value, future value, present value of an annuity, future value of an annuity, compound interest, present value of a perpetuity, and financial statement ratios. Other questions on the exam included depreciation, cash flow, capital investments, financial management basics, financial statement basics, foreign currency, bonds, call/put options. So it was really a mixed bag, but, again, for some reason I noticed many questions about stock dilution. 
Time taken on course: About 4 LONG days. 
Familiarity with subject before course: I have an associate degree in accounting so I had prior familiarity with most of the content of the course, and this was more of a refresher for me than anything else (it's been 10 years since my degree and I don't work in the field). I would suggest having a couple of lower level accounting classes prior to this class. It's not strictly necessary, but if you don't have prior familiarity with some of the content you should plan on it taking more time for you to complete
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: The difficultly of this course (in my opinion) comes from the amount of the course content. None of it is particularly difficult on its own, but there is a lot to learn. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 7

[jsh1138]

Provider: study.com
Course: Business 121: Introduction to Entrepreneurship
Course content: Videos and transcripts, quizzes and a proctored final exam
Final exam format: 70 multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: pretty similar
Time taken on course: About 2 weeks while doing other things
Familiarity with subject before course: I run a small business, so familiar 
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: This is actually a really helpful course if you're thinking about starting a business. Much of it was review for me but its well laid out for the most part and has a lot of good ideas in it, especially about how to organize and fund your business
1-10 Difficulty level: 2

[Merlin]

Provider: Straighterline
Course: Cultural Anthropology ("new" version: MH_V3)
Course content: Textbook provided. 14 topics, 4 graded quizzes @ 125 points, midterm exam @ 200 points, final exam @ 300 points (1,000 total points)
Final exam format: Open-book final (proctored via ProctorU) with two hours to answer 50 multiple choice questions covering all 14 chapters (exam guide says it only tests on 9-14 though)
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Questions were a mix of those from the quizzes/midterm question bank that I'd seen before and new questions
Time taken on course: About a week off and on, which was 90% spent on reading the textbook (it was long, dry, and boring) so I took a lot of breaks.
Familiarity with subject before course: General familiarity with subject areas but no prior experience with Cultural Anthropology. Covers stuff like culture, races, language, economics, politics, family structures, etc.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Final exam is worth 300 points, so if you do well on quizzes and midterm you are already close to the 70% needed to pass. Plus the final is open book (currently) so you can easily double-check your answers. A double-sided page of notes is also allowed on the final.
1-10 Difficulty level: 2-3

[MNomadic]

Provider: Study.com
Course: English 105: college composition 2
Course content: Typical SDC style. Watch the videos/read the transcripts and take quizzes
Final exam format: 100 questions multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: final exam was passable if you take all the quizzes
Time taken on course: You can go through all the lessons and study for/take the final within a few days to a week. The projects add some time to that. Depending on how good you are at writing essays, I'd say you can submit decent ones from a days work each. If you do well enough on the quizzes and final then you can submit essays with enough points to pass the course in a few hours each. Just remember that you can resubmit essays later to get a higher grade after you make corrections. One thing that I didn't consider until after I was done with the course is submitting "rough drafts" to get graded and then making corrections and resubmitting later for a better grade.
Familiarity with subject before course: This is first year english level material. I've spoken and read exclusively in english my whole life so I'm fairly familiar with this material.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Knowing how to properly cite sources in MLA and APA is probably the trickiest part. I'd recommend referencing the grading rubric and example essays when writing your own so that you have an idea of what they are looking for. Also, It's best if you reference mostly academic and scholarly sources for your paper(as opposed to less reliable material found on the internet). A free membership to your local public library should provide you with sufficient access to their databases with scholarly journals and other legitimate academic sources.
1-10 Difficulty level: quizzes and final: 2-3 
essays: 5(if you want to do them well, getting enough points for a passing grade: 2)




Provider: Study.com
Course: Finance 102: personal finance
Course content: typical SDC videos/quizzes
Final exam format: 100 multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The final focuses mainly on the concepts. Very little in the way of math and calculations
Time taken on course: 2 weeks. This was my first SDC course and I was getting the hang of it. If I thought to take the placement exam sooner I could have skipped a lot more of the lessons and finished sooner. 
Familiarity with subject before course: Been handling my own personal finances my whole adult life. Been investing and saving extensively for several years. Never felt the need to budget before, learn extensively about retirement concepts or file bankruptcy so those took a little bit of learning.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Don't worry if you struggle with math, calculating and using formulas. They take only a small portion of the final.
1-10 Difficulty level: 3



Provider: SDC
Course: History 108: history of the vietnam war
Course content: typical sdc quizzes and videos
Final exam format: 100 multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: a lot of final seemed to catch me off guard but I still passed with a high grade
Time taken on course: 1-3 days
Familiarity with subject before course: basic knowledge of history. I actually learned quite a bit about the material
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: If you are just listening to the audio, make sure you also look at how names are spelled. It can be confusing when you read a question and have no idea who they're asking about since foreign names can be tricky
1-10 Difficulty level: 2



Provider: SDC
Course: Library science 101: information literacy
Course content: typical SDC
Final exam format:100 multiple 
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: going through the quizzes and videos is sufficient  
Time taken on course: 1-2 days. It's very few lessons(like 40ish) and there is a lot of overlap if you do some english courses ahead of time
Familiarity with subject before course: Just finished an english course and I'm familiar with finding information on the internet
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: pretty straight forward
1-10 Difficulty level: 1 probably the easiest course from this provider




Provider: Math 104:calculus
Course: SDC
Course content: typical videos and quizzes
Final exam format: 70 multiple choice questions
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: The final exam emphasizes the concepts more than doing actual math. This makes it probably a little easier to pass. Makes it difficult for myself to judge if I adequately learned 1st semester calculus material, though. Don't bother printing the formula sheet, I don't think I even used it once on the final besides as extra scratch paper. The few formulas I needed and couldn't remember weren't on it. 
Time taken on course: I flew through the first 48% rather quickly but slogged through the last half over a course of 2 weeks.
Familiarity with subject before course: I've always been pretty good with math. have taken precalculus and touched on a lot of calculus material in previous classes. All of these classes were 6-10 years previous, though. Definitely had to review a lot of it especially trig.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: A LOT of the questions were wrong or stupidly worded. Almost none of the quiz or practice test questions have answer explanations so that is a TREMENDOUS problem if you are trying to learn what you did wrong. Often times I would watch a lesson, follow along with the practice questions and have a great understanding of it all, then completely fail the quiz. So I rewatch, redo all the practice questions, pause, replay and make absolutely certain I understood it... then fail again. Then feel like i'm stupid and can't get it, have low self esteem, and guess my way through the quiz so I could get to the next lesson. Only find out that the info I needed to pass that quiz was actually in the next few lessons. So in the end, I didn't get adequate practice on the stuff I was trying to learn. 

Long story short: this is NOT a good class for learning calculus. If you want a cheap/quick way to get calculus requirement out of the way, you should do ALL your learning ahead of time using Khan or another platform and essentially just use this SDC course as a way to quickly "test out" of it. Or just test out of it with CLEP. 
1-10 Difficulty level: The material itself: 6(easier than a typical college calculus curriculum)
 dealing their out of order issues and lack of explanations for wrong answers and many more issues: 9.5


Provider: SDC
Course: Statistics 101:principals of statistics
Course content: typical sdc
Final exam format: 70 multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: the final emphasized concepts over calculations and formulas
Time taken on course: 2 weeks
Familiarity with subject before course: pretty familiar with math in general before hand and a little familiar with statistics concepts
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: I didn't bother trying to commit too many of the harder formulas to memory. I basically just took those as a loss and still passed just fine by a wide margin
1-10 Difficulty level: 4

I always recommend taking the practice final at least 1-2 times to make sure you know it all well enough before taking the final for all SDC classes.

[Merlin]

Provider: Straighterline
Course: BUS201: Principles of Management
Course content: Textbook and slides provided. 14 topics, 4 graded quizzes @ 150 points, midterm exam @ 200 points, final exam @ 200 points (1,000 total points)
Final exam format: Open-book final (proctored via ProctorU) with two hours to answer 80 multiple choice questions covering topics 8-14.
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Questions were a mix of those from the quizzes/midterm question bank that I'd seen before and new questions
Time taken on course: About a week and a half off and on, which was 90% spent on reading the textbook (over 600 pages.) I could have done it much quicker had I just skimmed the material since the final predominately covered material I already knew.
Familiarity with subject before course: Pretty familiar with the subject matter as I've worked in management for quite a while, but their perspective is a bit different than my experience, so I felt obligated to read at least a good chunk of the text.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Final exam is worth 200 points, so if you do well on quizzes and midterm you can exceed the 70% needed to pass before you even begin the final exam. Plus the final is open book (currently) so you can easily double-check your answers. A double-sided page of notes is also allowed on the final.
1-10 Difficulty level: 4-5 for someone completely new to the subject, felt more like a 2-3 for me.

[fork]

Provider: Study.com
Course: Quantitative Literacy
Course content: videos, written transcript of the videos, quizzes and a proctored final exam
Final exam format: 70 multiple choice
Final exam content vs course content/practice exams: Many of the questions were similar to questions in the quizzes and practice tests but I thought there may have been some new content and, to me, the final exam seemed more difficult overall. I think for me it was more the time pressure than anything. Anyway, make sure to know the Pythagorean theorem and how to apply it! There seemed to be many questions on this exam that dealt with that.  There were also questions regarding statistics/probability, factoring polynomials, figuring monthly payments and future/present value, logic questions, questions about rounding and estimating etc. Pretty much a mixed bag of what was in the course.   
Time taken on course: I blew through this very long course in about a week to ten days. I wasn't very prepared for the final but I just wanted to finish it so I took a chance and passed. Not exactly with flying colors, though
Familiarity with subject before course: Some of it I'd never seen before (I've never done trig) and was difficult and some of it was very elementary (whether I'd seen it before or not) and easy. This is actually why I ended up choosing this course over the precalc course even though it was considerably longer. I figured the really easy things would help bring my final grade up in case I had a really hard time with the more difficult things. I think this ended up being a good strategy, otherwise I would have had to take much more time with it.
Pitfalls, high points, things others should know: Unlike with the precalc class (which I considered before deciding on this one), this class does NOT give you a formula sheet to use during the final exam. You have to try to remember all the formulas presented during the course and there are A LOT of them. I think I could have done better on the final if I could have just had a formula sheet to jog my memory. Another thing is that there are lessons out of order. For the things I really didn't know, it was annoying to try to learn then go to the next lesson and think why didn't they put this one first? So I'd recommend just going through all the lessons in a chapter before taking any of the quizzes. Also, there were a couple times I had to go to khan academy to help me because what was presented in the lesson didn't make sense to me. As for high points, well, the videos can be very amusing at times. 
1-10 Difficulty level: 8 for me, but it's highly dependent on individual math/logic ability.