Codecademy exercises have nicely packaged data prepared for us to use. However, there will be many occasions when we would like to explore a question that does not have a dataset ready for us to download. For example, based on their performance last year, which MLB players should I select in my fantasy baseball draft?
As we search for alternatives online, we may find a website that shares information we’d like to include in our analysis. However, it would be laborious to navigate to dozens of pages and manually copy and paste the information we find into a spreadsheet.
The good news is that Python web scraping libraries like Beautiful Soup can automate the collection of data from websites. Codecademy has a new course introducing you to the basics of webscraping and Beautiful Soup. In this article, we will walk through an example of how to use Beautiful Soup to collect MLB player stats from the 2018 season.
Specifically, we will cover how to:
- Set Up Beautiful Soup and Requests
- Connect to the ESPN Website with Requests
- Extract MLB player stats with Beautiful Soup
- Populate a Pandas DataFrame with the scraped player stats
At the end of this article, we’ll have our own .csv file containing the batting performance of all 331 players in the league, which will help inform our fantasy baseball picks. Afterwards, you’ll be able to use Beautiful Soup to pull information from anywhere online. Let’s start scraping!
Setting Up Beautiful Soup
In order to prepare our Python environment for web scraping, we need to install two Python packages, Requests and Beautiful Soup.
Requests is a library that allows us to read a website’s source code, and Beautiful Soup is the library that searches and parses this HTML source code based on its tags. We can install both these packages by simply going to our command line interface and executing this command:
pip install requests beautifulsoup4
If you need additional assistance installing these packages, feel free to consult Requests and Beautiful Soup’s own guides for installation.
Then, import these libraries for use in your Python development environment of choice (Jupyter Notebooks, Spyder, Atom, IDLE, you name it) with two import statements:
import requestsfrom bs4 import BeautifulSoup
While we’re at it, let’s import two other libraries that will come in handy as we write our program: Pandas and Regular Expressions (re). Now our Python environment should be ready for web scraping!
As we build our own DataFrame with information we scrape from the ESPN page, we will be introducing the Requests and Beautiful Soup methods that are essential for web scraping. Namely, we will be going over the Request library’s .get() method, and Beautiful Soup’s .find_all(), .find(), and .get_text() methods.
Connect to the Website
We can connect to a website by passing a string of the URL we would like to visit into requests.get(). So, to connect to the MLB statistics page we would execute the code:
page = requests.get(‘http://www.espn.com/mlb/history/leaders/_/breakdown/season/year/2018/start/1’)
Then, we can look at the source code behind this website by looking at the .text property with this get request: page.text.
Next, we are going to specify that Beautiful Soup should parse the source code, page.text, as HTML by including the argument html.parser and saving it to a variable, soup. You can learn more about different parsers here, but the most common we will encounter is HTML.
Now that we have the source code, we can begin to locate the HTML elements we want to scrape.
Useful Beautiful Soup Methods
Next, we’re going to use Beautiful Soup’s .find_all() and find() methods to extract information from the source code. Beautiful Soup().find_all() is essential for us to locate the elements that contain the player’s statistics like HRs (Home Runs) or RBIs (Runs Batted In) and so on.
If you’ve gone through our Beautiful Soup lesson, you’ll recall that find_all() works by searching the HTML source code for the tags and attributes we specify.
First, find_all() requires that we state the tag of element we want to scrape. Next, we specify attributes in .find_all()’s attrs argument, which is constructed like so:
attrs = {'attribute1_name': 'attribute1_value', 'attribute2_name': 'attribute2_value'}
When you put it all together, here is an example of us extracting just the first player’s row from the table:
soup.find_all('tr', attrs = {'class': 'oddrow player-10-33039'})
Please note that .find_all() always returns a list [ ]. This is helpful when we want to include multiple elements with the same tag or attribute.
However, if we just wanted to focus on a single element, we could use the .find() method, which returns just the first element that meets our search criteria. The arguments for .find() are constructed in the exact same method as .find_all(), where we specify the tags and/or attributes of the elements we want to scrape.
For instance, it is preferable to use .find() when we scrape the table header that lists the column names (Player, HR, RBI, etc). ESPN designed the table with this header repeated every 10 players, so it appears on the current page five times. However, it is only necessary for us to collect this table header once.
Note the difference in output between a .find_all() and .find() constructed with the same parameters:
.find_all(‘tr’, attrs={'class':'colhead'}) returns a list of all five table headers that appear in the table, while .find('tr', attrs={'class':'colhead'}’) returns just one table header element that lists the column names from PLAYER to BA (Batting Average).
Now that we know how to narrow in on the element(s) that we desire with .find_all() and .find(), it would be helpful to remove the HTML notation and keep only the plain text that contains the players’ statistics. For instance, in Mookie Betts’ element, we can begin to make out some of his statistics:
Specifically, we know that the last
tag is .346 Ultimately we want to keep just the text that reports Betts’ batting average and remove all HTML notation (the start and end
tags). Fortunately, we can select just text with Beautiful Soup’s .get_text() method, which we call by executing on a Beautiful Soup element. This method extracts all the text that falls outside of the tag notation (<>).Here is what it looks like when we extract the text from each
element in Mookie Betts’ table row:
Finally, we are ready to begin web scraping on a larger scale! With the knowledge of how to connect to websites with requests.get(), to narrow in on HTML elements with .find_all() and .find(), and to extract readable text from HTML elements with .get_text(), we can begin building a more involved web scraper that can repeat this process for every player in the league.
Populating Our DataFrame
Now that we have all the tools to scrape all the players’ names and stats from the HTML source code, let’s create a final DataFrame using Pandas to organize and save this information. At the end, we will have a DataFrame with the batting stats for all 331 players that we’ll export to a .csv file for analysis before our fantasy draft.
We want the column names for this final DataFrame to be the same as column names used in the table found on ESPN, so let’s scrape the text from the table header. When we look at the source code on ESPN, we see that the start tag for the table header is
.
Since we only want to scrape a single element (and not the repeated headers every 10 rows in table), let’s use the .find() method.
Once we have the table header, we want to extract the text from each column, which is stored in table data (
) elements. We will use list comprehensions with Beautiful Soup’s .get_text() method to extract the text from each element and save it to a variable, columns.We will then create an empty DataFrame called final_df and set its columns equal to the values we just scraped from the table header. As we scrape the players’ stats, we will populate final_df with each player’s performance.
Now it’s time to scrape each baseball player’s stats. As we noticed with Mookie Betts’ row in the source code, each player’s data is stored in a table row (
) element with a class attribute. Fortunately, as we look at multiple player’s rows, we notice a pattern in the value of the class attribute.For instance, the Atlanta Braves’ Nick Markakis’s stats are contained in
and Manny Machado is listed in . We realize that all the players’ classes begins with oddrow or evenrow followed by player-10- and then some identifying digits.Knowing this, we can scrape all player elements by using the regular expression’s compile function to pick up all the elements that contain the string row player-10- in its class value:
players = soup.find_all('tr', attrs={'class':re.compile('row player-10-')})
Now that we have all the HTML elements that contain the players’ data on this page, we want to extract the stats from each player’s row, and then concatenate it to the end of the final_df DataFrame.
In order to accomplish this, we will loop through every player’s element and extract the
tags by using list comprehensions and Beautiful Soup’s .get_text() method, much like we did with the table header.Then, we will create a temporary DataFrame, temp_df, that stores an individual player’s stats with the same column names that we extracted from the table header. We can concatenate temp_df to the end of final_df with pd.concat(), merging each successive player’s stats with the stats we have already collected.
Now we have all the player’s stats on this page, but we’re not quite finished. Each page on the ESPN site only lists 50 players, but there were 331 batters in the league during the 2018 season. In order to collect data on all 331 players, we need to scrape data from all 7 of the URLs that contain player data.
We notice a pattern in the URL address: if we just change the last number after /start/, our table will begin with at that rank and list the next 50 players by batting average.
Therefore, we can recreate all the URLs we want to visit with a for loop that iterates through a range function from 1 to 331 in increments of 50 and plugs it into the base URL address. We will then repeat the scraping of player data on each of the URLs in this for loop and concatenate them to the end our final_df.
We now have the batting statistics for all 331 MLB players in our DataFrame final_df! For our final step, let’s export this DataFrame to a .csv file for us to analyze in preparation for our fantasy baseball draft.
Conclusion
Like we did with the baseball player’s stats on ESPN, you can go forth and collect information on websites for your own analysis using Python’s Beautiful Soup. You have the tools to navigate the messy source code used to create web pages and extract the information of interest to you.
Web scraping will certainly save you time and energy when you want to collect data on multiple websites with a similar structure, or if you pull data on the same webpage on a daily cadence. Now, instead of visiting all of these webpages individually or visiting the same webpage each day, all you have to do is run your Python script written with Beautiful Soup.
To learn more about what you can do with Beautiful Soup, the best place to begin is Codecademy’s “Web Scraping with Beautiful Soup” course. Codecademy’s lesson can expand your Beautiful Soup expertise by reviewing how to navigate the HTML structure with the .parent, .children properties or select HTML elements based on their CSS selectors.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed or rusty navigating the source code of the webpages you’re trying to scrape, we recommend that you brush up on your HTML knowledge. Then, you’ll be scraping in no time.
Special Key
What story could this image tell?
Use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by this illustration.
Post it in the comments, then read the related article to find out what this image is all about.
Find many more ways to use our Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan.
Word + Quiz: gelid
gelid ˈje-ləd adjective
: extremely cold
_________
The word gelid has appeared in two articles on NYTimes.com in the past two years, including on Feb. 26, 2018, in “Snow Falls in Rome, and the Eternal City Takes a Holiday” by Elisabetta Povoledo:
ROME — Snow made a rare appearance in Rome on Monday, paralyzing the Italian capital for hours, hobbling the public transport system, and snarling air, road and rail transportation. The army was enlisted to help spread salt and to shovel slush from the city’s streets, where dozens of cars had become stranded.
… A Siberian weather front nicknamed the Beast from the East sent temperatures plunging and brought snow and icy conditions to many European countries in recent days. In Italy, the weather front was dubbed Burian, a play on the name for a gelid wind from the Siberian steppe, and temperatures have dropped well below their seasonal average.
_________
Should Congress Try to Impeach President Trump?
In “Is Obstruction an Impeachable Offense? History Says Yes,” Adam Liptak tries to respond to the first question:
President Trump has been consulting the Constitution. In a Twitter post on Monday, he recited part of Article II, Section 4, the provision that allows Congress to remove federal officials who commit “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Mr. Trump wrote that he had done none of those things: “There were no crimes by me (No Collusion, No Obstruction), so you can’t impeach.”
The president’s analysis had two shortcomings. It misstated the conclusion of the report issued by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which made no definitive judgment about whether Mr. Trump had violated criminal laws concerning obstruction of justice. And it failed to take account of what the framers meant by “other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The phrase is vague, of course, but it plainly does not encompass every ordinary crime. Rather, it follows two offenses that give a good sense of the kinds of crimes the framers had in mind: treason and bribery. Those are crimes against the state and the justice system that undermine the ability of the government to function.
Constitutional scholars say that similar offenses — ones involving the lawless use of official power threatening the constitutional order — are what the framers thought could justify removal from office.
Does Mr. Trump’s conduct, as described in the Mueller report, clear that high bar? The two most recent impeachment proceedings, against Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton, indicate that it could.
The articles of impeachment in both cases identified one sort of presidential conduct that the Constitution cannot tolerate: the corrupt use of power to frustrate lawful investigations.
“The Nixon and Clinton cases prove beyond a shadow of the doubt that obstruction of justice can qualify as a ‘high crime and misdemeanor,’” said Joshua Matz, an author, with Laurence H. Tribe, of “To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment.”
Frank O. Bowman III, a law professor at the University of Missouri and the author of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump,” to be published this summer, said the Nixon and Clinton cases were informative.
“The historical comparisons make out a solid case for an article of impeachment against Trump for obstruction of justice in both the technical legal sense and in the more general sense of an attempt to subvert American legal process and institutions,” Mr. Bowman said.
In “Divided on Impeachment, Democrats Wrestle With Duty and Politics,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos address the second question. They write about the growing divide in Congress between those who say yes to impeachment and those who say no:
As Speaker Nancy Pelosi urges caution on impeachment, rank-and-file House Democrats are agonizing over the prospect of ousting President Trump, caught between their sense of historic responsibilities and political considerations in the wake of the special counsel’s damning portrait of abuses.
Some feel a sense of duty to pursue impeachment:
“A realization is setting in that this moment has found us,” said Representative Jared Huffman, a fourth-term Democrat from Northern California, who is advocating impeachment. “We cannot ignore it. We cannot wish it away. For some, this may be a very, very difficult matter. But this is why we have a House of Representatives. And this is absolutely what our founders imagined when a president did these sorts of things.”
But moderate Democrats, including Ms. Pelosi, are urging a more cautious approach:
“The media just wants a thumbs up or thumbs down, pro-impeachment or not,” Mr. Raskin said. “They don’t appreciate this is a process, an instrument in the Constitution that is the people’s last defense against a president trampling the rule of law and acting like a king. But it is a process, and it is meant to be a process.”
Mr. Raskin said he believes that the obstruction outlined in Mr. Mueller’s report constitutes impeachable offenses, but he is not yet convinced they warrant proceeding with an impeachment. He urged Democrats to build an independent and full record for the public of what had occurred, rather than relying entirely on the Mueller report as Republicans relied on the Starr Report to impeach Mr. Clinton.
Removing a president from office requires bipartisan buy-in and the acceptance of the American people, as was the case with Richard M. Nixon but not Mr. Clinton. Congress undertook months of hearings on Watergate, beginning in May 1973, before threatening Nixon with impeachment in the summer of 1974. By that time, about two thirds of the American people believed he had participated in the Watergate cover-up.
“If you look at history, articles of impeachment were considered in the House of Representatives two weeks before Richard Nixon resigned; all the rest happened before that,” said Representative Jan Schakowsky, a liberal Democrat from a safe seat in Illinois. “By the time that decision was made to go to articles of impeachment, the American people had heard it all and were persuaded.”
Ms. Pelosi and her leadership team appear to be following the Nixon model. The House Judiciary Committee has already issued a subpoena to compel the Justice Department to produce an unredacted copy of the Mueller report and all the evidence his investigation collected so Congress can begin sifting through it.
Still, others are worried about the precedent that not pursuing impeachment may set for future presidents:
Mr. Huffman and Ms. Waters have urged colleagues to grapple with the implications of failing to act: What if they choose not to try to impeach a president who had been all but accused by the special counsel of obstructing justice and is an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal campaign finance felony in New York?
“If that president cannot face impeachment, then part of our constitutional responsibility is just a bunch of dead words,” Mr. Huffman said. “I think that is pretty bad for the country. I think it invites abuse from this president for the next year and a half. I think it sets a terrible precedent that will be abused by future president. And we can’t take that lightly.”
Students, read both articles, then tell us:
— Ms. Stolberg and Mr. Fandos note, “The founders left the definition of high crimes and misdemeanors — the criteria for impeachment, along with more specific offenses like treason and bribery — open to interpretation.” And they point out that these offenses do not necessarily have to be crimes to warrant impeachment and that “in the past noncriminal acts have been so defined.”
In your opinion, do any of Mr. Trump’s actions rise to the level of impeachable offenses? If so, which ones and why? If not, why not?
— How do the accusations against Mr. Trump compare to those against Mr. Nixon and Mr. Clinton? If Congress tried to impeach those two previous presidents, does that mean it should also try to impeach Mr. Trump? Why or why not?
— What do you think about Ms. Pelosi’s “go-slow” approach to impeachment proceedings? At this time, do you think Congress has enough evidence to proceed with impeachment? Or should it continue its own investigations before considering impeachment?
— In a recent interview, Ms. Pelosi said:
“Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country,” she added. “And he’s just not worth it.”
Do you agree with this statement? Do you believe impeachment proceedings that are likely to fail in a Republican-controlled Senate are “worth it”? Why or why not?
— Others have argued that not pursuing impeachment sets up a dangerous precedent for future presidents. To what extent do you agree with this line of thinking? Explain your reasoning.
— Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who is the majority leader, told reporters that he thought “it’s time to move on” because Mr. Mueller found no collusion and no charges had been brought against Mr. Trump. Democrats are also worried about getting distracted from other issues voters sent them to Washington to address, like health care and jobs. Do you think it’s time for Congress to drop its investigations of Mr. Trump and “move on”?
— With all this in mind, do you believe Congress should try to impeach Mr. Trump? Why or why not? What other arguments for or against impeachment not laid out in these articles can you think of to support your opinion?
Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
Learning With: ‘A Bitter Finish for Slow Runners: Get on the Bus’
Before reading the article:
You are playing Fortnite all afternoon. You’re really killing it, and after a few close calls and a little luck, you’ve reached the final two teams. Suddenly there’s a knock at the door: It’s your parents. You have to stop playing and come to dinner!
Or …
You are at school. You have prepared furiously for a class presentation for weeks. You failed the last test and this is your chance to redeem yourself. You nervously stand to give your presentation, but you know this is your time to shine … and the bell rings. Class is over.
How do you think you would feel? Would you shout? Cry? Laugh?
Now, imagine you have been training for months for a race. You get up at dawn and run for hours. Sweat pours down your face and your body wants to give up, but you refuse to quit. Suddenly, a law enforcement agent approaches and tells you you must stop.
On a frustration scale of 1-10, would you be at an 11? Just how mad, disappointed or humiliated would you be?
Well, this scenario is just what happens to some runners every year at the Seven Mile Bridge Run in Marathon, Fla.
Now, read the article “A Bitter Finish for Slow Runners: Get on the Bus” and answer the following questions:
1. Why does the Seven Mile Bridge Run have to end by 9 a.m., exactly an hour and a half after it began?
2. What is the “shag bus?” How did it get its name? Who operates it?
3. Why do so many races have time restrictions, unlike, say, the Boston Marathon, where runners theoretically can continue at any speed for as long as they like?
4. What are some of the reasons runners are pulled off? Why do you think they feel compelled to offer excuses to others on the shag bus?
5. The article ends with the story of a runner who was rounded up by the shag bus, but escaped as it neared the finish line:
Taking advantage of the distraction, a runner who had been quietly sulking at the front of the bus suddenly got up and sprinted for the door, slipping past [a sheriff’s deputy, Frank] Westerband. He proceeded to jog unimpeded all the way to the finish line, where he was greeted with applause from runners who had managed to complete the course without riding the bus.
There was a moment of stunned silence on the shag bus, as the passengers contemplated the unethical nature of the man’s action and wondered why they had not thought of it first.
Do you think the runner’s action was unethical? Would you have cheered when he reached the finish line? Would you have done the same thing if you had been on the shag bus and had the same opportunity to slip past the driver?
Finally, tell us more about what you think:
— What is your reaction to the story and the tale of “laggards,” “stragglers” and what the author describes as “disgraced runners”? How would you have reacted if you were one of the runners who was ordered onto the shag bus?
— What do you think is the author’s point of view on the runners who end up on the shag bus? Is she sympathetic to their plight, or do you think she is gently poking fun at them? What do you think is the author’s take on the authorities whose job it is to pull the runners off the track? What’s your evidence for your conclusions? Why do you think a story about people who are unable to finish a seven mile race was featured in The New York Times?
— In a 2010 Opinionator post, “The Power of Failure,” William D. Cohan writes:
In his May 2009 baccalaureate address to Duke’s graduating class, Sam Wells, the dean of Duke University Chapel, hoped the students would “never be dazzled by your own success … and not pretend success is everything or success makes you immortal. And, most of all, that you’ll let your life begin the day you really, seriously fail, and let that day be the day you discover who you truly are and whether that failure is really in a cause that will finally succeed. … The most powerful person in the world is the one who isn’t paralyzed by the fear of their own failure.”
Do you agree? Can failure be useful? What about humiliating failure? Can you think of examples from your own life or someone else’s, when failure has led to something positive?
— It is often said that sports teach life lessons. (You can read examples here and here.) What lessons have you learned from participating in sports? Does the article change how you think about winning and losing? Will it make your next loss easier to swallow?
— Look at the photos featured in the article. Select one image and write thought bubbles for the people in the photo, or use the picture to create a meme about sports, competition, success or failure.
Exactly what occurs if you stopped brushing your teeth
Almost half of Americans do not brush their teeth enough. This unlocks for a germs intrusion, resulting in dental caries and gum illness. Even even worse, you may increase your threat for problems like kidney illness and dementia. The following is a records of the video.
Meet Streptococcus mutans. He’s a germs and … a little bit of a slob. However this isn’t really simply any mess. It’s exactly what’s on your teeth! You see, “Strep” and all his roomies live inside your mouth, feeding off the sugar and protein in your food. When they’re done they excrete a slimy compound all over your teeths.
Completion outcome is a bacteria-ridden pigsty, called biofilm. Now a little biofilm isn’t really going to harm you. It’s just when you stop brushing it away that things can get unsightly. And not just for your teeth. It so occurs that “Strep” and his buddies are a downright danger to your life.
Almost half of Americans do not brush their teeth enough. When food develops in those nooks and crannies, you’re welcoming a host of germs to the celebration– including your gum line. The ideal location for germs to camp out in even higher numbers! Which irritate and irritate your gums, triggering inflammation and bleeding.
However that’s simply the start! Quickly enough, that infection will activate your body immune system. Which sends out fighter cells to fight the germs. This develops a hostile environment for the germs, which is exactly what you desire. However it can likewise harm the cells in close-by tissue and bone.
6 months to years later on, that tissue and bone will ultimately pass away. At this moment, you do not have gingivitis any longer. You have something much even worse: gum illness. No more tissue and bone implies no structural assistance. So, your gums different from your teeth forming pockets that rapidly end up being additional area for “Strep” and his buddies. Which additional contaminates your gums, triggering your teeth to fall out.
Now, you might believe this might never ever take place to you however about 10% of Americans in between ages 50-64 have actually lost not simply a couple of, however ALL their teeth! And to make matters worse, “Strep” and his friends might enter your blood stream, where they’ll ruin your organs, too.
For instance, in one research study, individuals with gum illness were 4.5 times most likely to have persistent kidney illness than individuals with healthy gums. And another research study discovered that individuals in a retirement home who didn’t brush their teeth daily, had up to a 65% higher threat of dementia. Finally, there’s the increased threat of establishing particular cancers:
To be reasonable, these dangers can likewise be the outcome of bad health in basic, however the message stays clear: Brush. Your. Teeth. It deserves the additional 4 minutes a day.
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Self-Driving Vehicles Are Going to Make Traffic Even More Miserable!
Whether you like it or not, self-driving cars will be hitting the road in full-force in the coming years. Thanks to new technology developed by companies like Tesla and even Uber, autonomous vehicles will become a staple of modern culture, with nearly 10 million self-driving cars expected to hit the road by 2020.
Yet, not all is well across the autonomous landscape. Like any new technology, there have literally been speed bumps in the world of self-driving cars. From accidents to malfunctioning AI, self-driving vehicles are still very much in their infancy.
However, new research in the world of autonomous vehicles has uncovered another potential issue down the line, parking. Anyone living in a metropolitan area will tell you that parking is always a long-winded adventure. According to a new study, autonomous vehicles could create a problematic parking issue.
Imagine a scenario. You and your family are dropped off by your electric car in the center of the city. However, like most already know, parking in the city is expensive, so rather than park, your vehicle cruises around the city until you’re done.
Though this may sound like a sweet set-up and a potential perk of owning an autonomous vehicle, this could be detrimental to transportation in the near future.
“Parking prices are what get people out of their cars and on to public transit, but autonomous vehicles have no need to park at all. They can get around paying for parking by cruising. They will have every incentive to create havoc,” says Adam Millard-Ball, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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Earning Your Degree Doesn’t Mean Putting Your Life On Hold
Online degrees give everyone a chance at a high-quality education that fits their lifestyle
Programs such as the University of Illinois iMBA, delivered entirely online through Coursera, give students from all walks of life the opportunity to earn a graduate degree at their own pace and at lower cost.
Patricia Ribiero Peña is a new mother with a full-time job, and juggling both can be challenging. Yet, between work and parenting, Peña found time to pursue a graduate degree and further her career. By completing the University of Illinois’ highly respected iMBA program entirely online on Coursera, she was able to work around her busy schedule.
“The concept of doing an MBA was a little scary,” says Peña. “I always imagined a block of two-to-three years I had to fulfill of nonstop studying, and then someone sent me a link with this new innovative program.”
Peña is like a lot of aspiring learners, who know the transformational impact a graduate degree can have but are unable to uproot their families and commit upwards of $50,000 per year to pursue an on-campus degree. That’s where Coursera can make a difference: its online degrees often cost less than the on-campus alternative, and its programs are as robust and more flexible than traditional in-person degrees, too.
“I have a full-time job, so I couldn’t go to the campus,” says Ashish Kumar, an online data science student at the University of Illinois. “The cost, flexibility and material — you put all this together and it’s really phenomenal.”
There is no question about the value of degrees. The difference in career opportunities and earnings over a lifetime for those with a high school degree versus those with a bachelor’s is estimated at $1 million, while the difference between a bachelor’s and master’s is more than $400,000, according to a study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. As the economy increasingly values technical and critical thinking skills, those wage gaps are likely to increase.
“You have to keep learning and if you can’t keep learning on your job, you need to find other outlets through which to do so,” says Dr. Michael Vigoda, a retired anesthesiologist and former University of Miami professor who took almost a dozen data science courses through Coursera’s partnership with the University of Michigan. “Coursera is a great way to do so.”
There is a fear, however, of rising tuition costs; concerns about student debt can scare potential students away. For established mid-career learners, factors such as geographic challenges, family and professional obligations, and the realities of the on-campus routine make taking time to learn difficult. There is also a stigma around receiving an online degree that may prevent aspiring learners from getting started. “There is a certain skepticism about the actual learning content of an online course, that it’s more of a certification and checking a box than a true experience in learning,” says Vigoda. “When I told my friends that I really understood how deep neural networks work, they were astounded that you could come to that level of understanding through an online course.”
The maturation of online courses is part of a continued push in higher education to increase the accessibility of a degree. “We wanted to do something to democratize education and to make a degree that was available for people so they can continue to work, continue to raise families,” says Jeffrey Brown, the dean of the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois.
Coursera achieves this by slashing the cost of a degree without any decrease in quality. “I was shocked about how [studying online] felt as good or better than when I was sitting in a class in my undergraduate days,” says Dan Gartley, an iMBA student at the University of Illinois.
The professors teach the same material as in their on-campus classes, but do so at a price that is often nearly 50 percent less. The Illinois iMBA program only costs $22,000.
Coursera’s offerings are also unique in that you can break up the decision to start graduate school into a series of smaller steps that allow you to acclimate to the coursework and decide if the degree is worth pursuing. “One of the features that worked well for me was how modular it is,” says Gartley. “I did the Digital Marketing Specialization, and then they started taking applications for the iMBA, and I thought I’ll give it a shot.”
The “try before you buy” approach that many Coursera degrees offer allows students to apply progress from previously taken courses and Specializations to a full degree program if they decide, like Gartley, to apply. Students can test the waters and, over time, gain the confidence to commit.
Coursera’s university partners structure their programs to be accessible to a diverse population. Farhad Zimarai, for example, is like any other Illinois iMBA student. He just happened to start the program very far from the state of Illinois. “I was trapped in a locality in Afghanistan that did not allow me to get a quality education, but [the professors] didn’t let me feel that I am in Afghanistan,” he says. “Being part of the iMBA was freedom from that.”
Such classroom diversity is one of many aspects that make online degrees so worthwhile, exposing students to viewpoints from around the world and from various stages of life. “One of the great parts of the iMBA is the life stations [that you are exposed to],” says Zimarai.
The diversity of the classroom is only made possible by universities and Coursera working together to create high-quality online degrees that open higher education to people of different ages, careers, and life stages. “Getting my iMBA makes me feel empowered because I don’t need to stop being myself,” says Peña. “I don’t need to stop working. I don’t need to stop being a mother. I don’t need to stop having my life, and that is everything.”
Here’s how Coursera works:
- Coursera hosts 14 full degree programs from top global universities, such as University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, University of Illinois and Imperial College London. Thirteen of these are master’s programs in Business, Data Science, Computer Science and Public Health, and one is a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of London.
- Coursera also offers courses, Specializations and certificate programs that give you a head start on a degree, so you can test the waters and gain confidence before you commit.
- Admitted applicants complete the entire course load online, in their own time, and often receive an identical degree to those who attended on campus.
For more information, visit coursera.org/degrees.
5 Accounting Jobs to Watch Over the Next 5 Years
The economy is changing at a dizzying pace, but one rule is constant: money makes the world go ‘round. In fact, macro trends such as globalization and increasingly complicated regulations are making financial accounting skills more in demand than ever.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that accountant and auditor jobs will grow 10% over the next decade. That’s significantly faster than the rate of growth for other job categories. However, the growing complexity of the financial world is putting pressure on accountants to boost their skills. The BLS notes that advanced degrees are giving applicants an advantage.
If you’re wondering what the future of accounting jobs might hold for you, read on to learn about intriguing emerging jobs in this fast-changing field. If you want to burnish your accounting credentials, the University of Illinois online iMSA program on Coursera can help you take your career to the next level.
International Accountant
As the economy becomes increasingly globalized, a growing number of companies’ business crosses borders. That’s where international accountants come in, with specialized expertise in foreign transactions as well as translations of different international accounting standards. In addition to a graduate degree, proficiencies in foreign languages can provide a competitive advantage in this growing field.
Financial Consultant
In a business world increasingly obsessed with “lean” organizational structures, more and more companies are avoiding hiring full-time accountants in favor of financial consultants. These specialists provide accounting expertise on a part-time or per-project basis. For accountants with the right expertise and credentials, financial consulting offers flexible hours and the chance to work with a wide variety of clients in need of help on challenging projects.
Environmental Accountant
Organizations of every size are realizing that what’s good for the planet is also good for their bottom line. Benefits include cost savings, a reduced regulatory risk profile, and good publicity. Environmental accountants are responsible for providing guidance at the intersection of the environment and business. Potential responsibilities include determining compliance costs for environmental regulations, identifying cost-saving environmental initiatives, and developing environmental management systems (EMS).
Forensic Accountant
Forensic accountants are the detectives of the financial world, with responsibility for “following the money” in cases of corporate fraud, public corruption, and organized crime. They identify suspicious entities and transactions, track the flow of money from criminal activities, work with law enforcement officers. Often, they testify in court as experts. Demand for Forensic Accountants has grown along with the increasing prevalence of complex financial crimes. The FBI is actively recruiting accounting candidates with advanced degrees and certifications.
Sports Accountant
Sports is a massive business, and the way franchises are managed has been revolutionized by the use of advanced analytics. The role of data isn’t limited to analyzing player performance: sports accountants play an important role at helping teams plan their budgets, negotiate salaries, and make trades against a backdrop of complex salary caps. If you’re a sports fan, this is one of the most fun accounting jobs imaginable. As you might imagine, the competition for these roles is nearly as fierce as the competition on the court.
Accounting careers are so much more than they used to be!. These emerging career paths offer fascinating work, good pay, and long-term growth opportunities. As such, the level of competition is significantly higher for them compared to traditional accounting jobs. With Coursera, you can apply for an affordable, fully online Master’s degree program in Accountancy from the University of Illinois. Illinois boasts one of the top three accounting programs in the country. Visit Coursera to learn more about how the University of Illinois iMSA can prepare your career for the future of accounting.
Getting Ready for EMOOCs 2019
We’re on our way to Italy! The big European MOOC conference, EMOOCs, is happening next month in the coastal city of Naples. The conference will tackle some big, future-oriented themes, including how higher education can respond to the demands of the information economy, reskilling and upskilling the workforce, and data and technology in education.
Perhaps it is fitting, then, that the local organizer of the conference, the University of Naples – Federico II (Federica for short), at nearly 800 years old, has dived headlong into digital strategy – with 300 courses on its own platform (Federica.eu) and 75 MOOCs available through edX.
This year’s EMOOCs conference agenda is full of big names in MOOC education. Candace Thille, Director of Stanford’s Open Learning Initiative and Director of Learning Science at Amazon, will be delivering a keynote address (she also spoke at this year’s Open edX Conference). Anant Agarwal and Simon Nelson, CEOs of edX and FutureLearn respectively, and Dil Sidhu, Chief Content Officer at Coursera, will take the stage for a set of keynotes to discuss what the future holds for MOOCs.
Class Central will be well represented at the conference. Our CEO Dhawal Shah will be delivering a keynote address on the current state of MOOCs. Also, yours truly will be hosting a panel session on the scalability of online degrees, with innovators from Georgia Tech, the University of Illinois, and the University of London. It’s a perfect follow-on to my last conference appearance at Learning with MOOCs, where I presented research on MOOC-based microcredentials.
In addition to the plenary sessions, we’re also excited to dig into the big questions in the smaller breakouts. The EMOOCs organizers have created five tracks, covering research, experience, policy, business, and one in which all the sessions are in Italian. Some breakout session topics that have particularly piqued our interest include virtual credit exchange, blended learning, workforce development, and how MOOCs are being used around the world.
If you are attending this year’s EMOOCs conference, be sure to find us and say hello!
Class Central is a media partner for EMOOCs. For other MOOC-related conferences, you can check out our full list of online learning conferences for 2019. We will also be at the Learning with MOOCS 2019 conference (October 23-25). Abstracts for papers for Learning with MOOCs 2019 are due May 1st.
