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Learner Reviews & Feedback for The Bits and Bytes of Computer Networking by Google

4.7
stars
47,509 ratings

About the Course

This course is designed to provide a full overview of computer networking. We’ll cover everything from the fundamentals of modern networking technologies and protocols to an overview of the cloud to practical applications and network troubleshooting. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to: ● describe computer networks in terms of a five-layer model ● understand all of the standard protocols involved with TCP/IP communications ● grasp powerful network troubleshooting tools and techniques ● learn network services like DNS and DHCP that help make computer networks run ● understand cloud computing, everything as a service, and cloud storage...

Top reviews

SK

Feb 18, 2021

This was really time-consuming but it was really worth learning. Although in the end, it seems to be very basic things, they would be essential through whatever you want to accomplish in the IT field.

DL

Feb 23, 2021

This course was amazing and helped me understand so much more about networking, things I never thought I would know or understand. Very fulfilling and I can't wait to use this knowledge going forward.

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351 - 375 of 10,000 Reviews for The Bits and Bytes of Computer Networking

By Matthew V

Aug 30, 2021

If you got here from Course 1, just know this course does not pull punches at all. There is going to be several technical jargon terms thrown at you every video, and you're expected to remember them. I recommend buying a college-ruled notebook and pen, because you are going to have to write a lot down to keep up and remember everything. This is the reason I give the course 4 stars, by trying to minimize the length of the videos, there isn't quite the amount of time a typical student would need to memorize all this material.

By Anshul Y

Dec 5, 2023

I think the course videos were good, but the quizzes at the end of the model could be little bit more engaging as most of the questions were basic ones.

By Pooya H

Mar 8, 2022

i wish it would be much more practical and hands on systems and real scenarios

By Seheon K

Mar 8, 2022

It would've been nice if the course provided more exmaples of how all the concepts of networking work in real life. It was pretty hard for me to piece all the inforamtion together, and understand how everything works eventually.

By Abdulahi A

Apr 8, 2023

this course was not well explained . special week 2 and week 3 . the video could be more clear and simplified . there was a lot of error . week 5 and 6 was good . networking map could be explained better

By Walberto R

Jul 1, 2022

having an issue with week 6 that has not been resolved by coursera. The issue has been there in one of the last excersices without a resolution. I am dissapointed at the potential for this certificate

By MUTTU M

Oct 11, 2023

Good

By Anthony D

Oct 6, 2022

While this course obviously covers a very important topic in IT, I feel it does it in all the wrong ways. For a certification course that is described as very entry level, and a precurser to taking your CompTIA A+ exam, this course is WAY too difficult and covers topics that simply are not necessary to know at this stage of your journey. Having already passed my 1101 exam, I can tell you that the depth in which this course delves into networking is not required of you for CompTIA and that exam holds a lot more weight than this cert does. For example, why are we constantly pounded about header sections of datagrams?? Does it really matter how many bits are in a specific section of a datagram header? How does knowing that information help you troubleshoot a networking problem? I mean, it's interesting background information but I can't see it's practical usefulness in a real world scenario and I can tell you CompTIA questions are almost all real world scenarios. Yet every test in this course forces you to memorize this seemingly insignificant information. On top of that, the way we're taught the information through such short videos does not help teach these difficult concepts for beginners. Several times during this course I found myself on Professor Messer's website studying videos for the Network + cert just to get through this material because it's simply not explained thoroughly by the instructor in this course. And the Network + cert is not at all considered a beginner cert and it's not required for entry level positions, so why is that content in this course? Professor Messer has several videos, some even 15-20 minutes in length to teach networking concepts, and that course is free of charge. I was able to learn much better from him than this instructor for that reason. Save yourself some time and learn this information from a better source, I was very dissapointed and beyond frustrated with the content and implementation of material in this course.

By Jaimie K

Mar 20, 2023

Course is literally just a huge amount of videos where you watch a guy talk. Not even remotely accessible/useful to those who are hard of hearing or have learning challenges. Almost no visual aids are used - and the few visual aids are not shared with you, so you have to dig through the videos later to try and find them if you want to look at them. The course isn't offered in Text (most of the videos have a transcript - but it's clearly autogenerated and has errors; and NONE have captions. There were at least half a dozen videos with no transcript at all! This course is more setup if you want to create Network Software than if you just want to understand the basics of networking. There was no need to force the learner to data packets from scratch, work out the exact edits to a data package during processing (like new version numbers, and what happens to each piece of data), or to learn how to read binary or convert IPv6 to IPv4. NONE of those things are topics for beginners who want a brief intro to the topic. These are all advanced things that software was designed to do for us. We just need to understand the intent - not be able to duplicate the results. Honestly, this course was a waste of my time and money. I didn't learn much that I will ever use, and I spent most of it literally searching through transcipts because WATCHING SOMEONE TALK ISN'T LEARNING! There were only a couple of interactive activities of any value. Most of them were either way too intricate (and in many cases, not actually something we were taught how to do), or were "optional discussions" with the rest of the class - although there isn't really a class because it's at your own pace and most of the posts are from some time ago).

By Valentin C

Jan 4, 2022

Words are thrown around interchangeably and haphazardly too often for something supposed to be so logical. It doesn't have to be dry but I felt it was made to be so personable that info came out confusing and sloppy at times. The quiz questions felt more focused on learning your specific cue cards than the actual universal knowledge. Sometimes it felt the questions were more tricky than the info itself. Plus, when you get a question wrong it doesn't tell you what specific video to double back to, it just lazily tells you it's somewhere in the entire section. Sometimes it's obvious where the question will be but often things are thrown in randomly to the weekly modules. I found myself confused after watching 7 minute videos only to head to youtube and getting a better explanation in less time for many of these subjects. The info was basic enough for beginners but I felt it left out more practical knowledge. I learned about subnets but I can see subnet addresses on my personal computer but I feel based on what was taught, that isn't where you go to change it? I don't even know? This felt more like a data dump than teaching. I know more but I wish I could have learned more of how to apply it.

By Richard K

Oct 5, 2021

I found the instruction needlessly confusing. The instructor sort of rambled making no distinction between needed facts and ancillary information. When questioned, i was asked to respond to questions based on one sentence of content. Their was little to "drill down" on as everything was a mono-tone of boring lecture. Yes, the information was correct, but much of it was presented without benefit of instructive example. Just a little time taken to show the "how" of operations would have made a great difference. Instead, i struggled to maintain interest and in the end i settled for the passing grade ( 92 ) instead of pushing for my best. I felt like this just had to end. Worst, i started to doubt myself and the value of this course. But, shaking that off i intend to go to the next level and do well their. Bits and bytes was disappointing

By Jesse G

Feb 8, 2021

I feel that the course titled The Bits and Bytes of Computer Networking wasn't really what I was expecting it to be. The lessons did not really go that much in depth and I felt that I really didn't learn the absolute fundamentals of computer networking. In most cases throughout this course, I had to find additional materials to help me understand what the course was trying to present to me. Even the provided supplemental readings (with perhaps the Wikipedia articles as an exception) failed to give me any kind of understanding of what I was supposed to learn in that particular lesson. Also, I feel it would have been beneficial to me, as a somewhat networking novice, if the lessons were more hands-on with scenarios of what I might encounter if I were in a networking role.

By Kyle W

Feb 25, 2022

Honestly, I was pretty disappointed in this networking course. In my opinion, the Coursera team should overhaul this course. Just having one instructor talk about abstract concepts in 90% of the videos isn't helpful for grasping and cementing in new concepts. I'm a pretty visual and hands-on learner, and this course was 90-95% all auditory. These were difficult abstract concepts that desperately begging for visuals, animations, real life scenario videos, simulations and virutal computer labs to help cement concepts. I don't feel I've learned as much as I could have. I'm really hoping the next course 3 OS & other 2 courses going forward won't be as frustrating as I work toward my Google IT Support Pro certificate.

By Grayson L

Feb 13, 2021

So far this course is only ok. I do not feel like it is giving me a solid foundation. They try to cover so much information, a lot of it very technical in a little time. They tell you to rewatch the videos and read the supplementary reading. The supplementary reading is ONLY wikipedia. And do not get me started on who scripted this--I don't know what I am going to do if I hear the words "I should call out" or "spoiler alert" one more time. The teachers, during the lesson videos seem very inauthentic. Google would have been better just letting the teachers free style the lesson.

By Antoine P

Mar 1, 2023

The gentleman that led this course did not do a very good job. This entire course i was more confused than anything and had to get a lot of help from outside sources. Most of the valuable content was not explained thoroughly and the instructor would vaguely go over information that just so happened to be on a test. The jokes were so lame as well, I do not feel like this course was for beginners as was advertised. Hopefully you will all read this one day and get another instructor for this course that can do a better job.

By Jack

Feb 9, 2022

There is allot of unneccesary talking, that makes it a little hard to follow. Especially for those who may have a learning disability. I understand the instructor in the video is trying to explain why and how he got interested into the course. But all of the uneccesary added talking should be saved at the end once we have finished the quizes and tests. I personally find it a little hard to follow when there is too much information given at a time. It's giving way to much to remember. It's almost over whelming.

By Ramesses N

Mar 23, 2023

The amount of course material given does not match up with the assignments & its really annoying. Your given all this information and supplement reading to digest and it feels like the quizzes and test aren't built around that. If google is going to give us quizzes and test then let the course material's focus match the focus of the topics on the quizzes don't throw an overwhelming amount of information into one section and then quiz us on half the information!

By Matthew P

Mar 13, 2023

Course is taught using too much high end vocabulary. It is really hard to follow along when the instructor is using terms we aren't familiar with. Also the videos are broken down in weird lengths, there will be a few 1 -2 minute videos that work well for their topic but then a 6-10 minute video that's packed full of information and feels like its rushed and becomes overwhelming for the student.

By Miss J D

Apr 6, 2022

Way too much information - should've been broken down into two parts. Poor explanation for subnetting. The interactive quizzes were confusing and I had to utilize outside resources. Discussion forums and mentors were NOT helpful. Glad that I've passed the section and am done with this course. I'll use another reource to master the topic.

By Ronnie J D

Sep 30, 2021

FIlled with tons of concepts that you can't really get hands-on experience from, at least not through the Coursera outline. Seeing the same "instructor" reading the script at you is just not engaging, especially when he attempts to be engaging with puns. Hopefully the rest of these courses have more tangible lessons.

By Alicsesther S M A

Sep 24, 2021

Not enough detail; instructor goes through things too fast and doesn't try to abstract very verbose things. I'm a tech enthusiast myself, so I understand that not everything can be abstracted; but christ, I was literally going to cry on IPv6 Compression

By Yash P

Apr 23, 2023

Mostly the course was boring as instructor just read from the second monitor. I wish they had more animated examples on how thing is working rather than showing the face of person. I had to watch NetworkChuck to understand what was happening.

By John P

Mar 7, 2023

I was really struggling with this one. I don’t know if its me or the way the information was explained, but I’m just not getting it. I am skipping over this for now, will work on the other courses and then come back to it.

By sarah s

Oct 21, 2023

Overly complex and hard to follow. Felt out of order. Maybe for cert provide a more simple beginner friendly introduction to networking and then provide a more advanced networking course that follows Network+ curriculum.

By Ryan G

Mar 10, 2023

The course was very informative, but with that amount of knowledge I found myself lost when it came to quizzes and implementing a lot of what I had learned.