Anybody taken a course on TheGreatCourses.com?

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Tis_Bearself

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I keep getting ads for courses from this website TheGreatCourses.com and it seems like they have a lot of interesting-looking courses on history, languages, and even Church history.

Anybody taken a course from there and can give any feedback?
Also, does anybody know how much they charge a month for membership and what you get if you’re a member?
 
Have you ever done any of the Great courses on Audible? I think they are similar to those…I’ve not joined the non Audible yet but I have really been pleased with most of the Audible offerings. I think the subscription Great Courses are supposed to be even higher quality than the Audible ones. I do know they aren’t repeats of Audibles classes.

I’m very interested if anyone has done these as well…I’m getting very tempted by a few titles!
 
I really like most of their courses. They have one on Saint Francis which was pretty good. I took /listened to the lectures for the course on History of Christian Theology Several years ago, and at that time it was one of the most eye opening series of lectures I’d ever heard. While the professor is not Catholic, and some of his personal theological opinions are not Catholic, he does a good job of staying neutral for the most part, and it really helped me to understand the differences in different theological tradition / Christian denominations. I do recommend that one in particular. But several courses are very good.
 
Pattylt said:
Have you ever done any of the Great courses on Audible? I think they are similar to those…I’ve not joined the non Audible yet but I have really been pleased with most of the Audible offerings. I think the subscription Great Courses are supposed to be even higher quality than the Audible ones. I do know they aren’t repeats of Audibles classes.

I’m very interested if anyone has done these as well…I’m getting very tempted by a few titles!
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Yeah. They ones on audible are the same courses, but not all are on audible. Audible is also cheaper…much cheaper, but is audio only. the TheGreatCourses.com website and TheGreatCoursesPlus.com have audio and video versions.

Just FYI, do NOT pay “full price” on The Great Courses website. They are NOT worth that much. Wait for their sale rotation to come around to the classes you want, or better yet, go either the Audible route or the GreatCoursesPlus (subscription) route. There can be a huge price difference. Obviously free from the library is best, as already noted by someone else.
 
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Yes I’ve done several. Cooking, sewing, creative writing, photography, the great cathedrals, and more.

If you purchase a course, wait for a sale. I didn’t know they had a subscription model. I’ve purchased individual courses and received some DVDs as gifts.
 
I purchased a few courses when lockdown started as many were being offered at a reduced price at the time. I’ve completed courses in the history of the Catholic Church, Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation.

I’d suggest reading the online reviews as one of the courses I studied had some factual errors but I was aware of that before buying the course. Overall I found them very enjoyable and easy to follow. I opted for audio versions only but you also get a useful PDF book outlining the major points of each lecture.
 
I have done some of the free courses with them. They are very good and interesting.
 
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Thanks all. I just noticed that the GreatCoursesPlus subscription plan doesn’t include all the courses on their Great Courses website, which is rather a rip off/ false advertising in my opinion, but I still might take a course that’s on sale. Library is not really a practical option for me for this type of thing.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Thanks all. I just noticed that the GreatCoursesPlus subscription plan doesn’t include all the courses on their Great Courses website, which is rather a rip off/ false advertising in my opinion, but I still might take a course that’s on sale. Library is not really a practical option for me for this type of thing.
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Maybe not, but they’ve got more than enough to keep me busy for the next 10-15 years, and the subscription price is definitely right. I’m currently working on 5 different courses with varying degrees of intensity, and I’m thinking about starting a 6th. And there are dozens of others waiting in the wings.

D
 
Two Catholic professors whose courses I would suggest: Luke TImothy Johnson and William R Cook. Two anti Christians I would avoid giving money to: Bart Ehrman and Amy-Jill Levine
 
A PDF is available for each course on Audible. It usually is just a synopsis of the course but if the professor mentions something visual, that picture is usually in the PDF as well as any graphs or charts. No, you don’t get access to anything online, though.

I’ve really enjoyed the lectures and audio is fine with me.
 
Thanks! I tried the library app back in the early days and gave up as it was terribly buggy. I assume they’ve fixed the bugs by now! I’ll redownload and try again!
 
My Cable provider let us watch some of the Great Courses for free for a month during the early stages of the pandemic, and I watched one on the ‘Black Death’ which I thought was well done. There were about 24 or so lectures taught by Dorsey Armstrong from Purdue University.

I learned a lot from it. If all the courses are as well done as that one, I would definitely recommend those courses to anyone.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
I keep getting ads for courses from this website TheGreatCourses.com and it seems like they have a lot of interesting-looking courses on history, languages, and even Church history.

Anybody taken a course from there and can give any feedback?
Also, does anybody know how much they charge a month for membership and what you get if you’re a member?
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YES! YES! YES!

Although I’m old school and strictly purchase only the DVD courses, so I’m not a “member” and don’t do their online service.

Highly recommended, and they have great customer service and a generous guarantee/return policy.

Never did any of their religion-oriented courses, although I may in the future when some other things are out of the way.

One of their most popular lecturers is Dr. Robert Greenberg, a former music professor who has done a large number of classical music courses.

And, as one of the others said, the DVD courses go on sale from time to time. Each of the courses goes on sale at least once per year.
 
The instant audio editions of their courses are available to stream from their website or to download individual lectures at any time for listening offline. But do know that the Great Courses has been recently transitioning their audio editions exclusively Audible. Their instant video editions are available from a variety of sources. If you belong to a library system that is a participating member of Kanopy, you can view a wide assortment of Great Courses lectures for no extra cost. (Check your library’s website.)
 
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