Stories

Do Course Certificates Matter?

Article news.ycombinator.com

Do Course Certificates Matter?

You probably already know the answer, which is no -- they don't matter much in the "real world."

But I think that's not the complete picture.

I found that certificates can be a really good source of motivation. Human beings tend to love collecting stuff, that's why we love Pokémon, for instance, and why kids love collecting badges in class. It's human nature.

After a long course, it feels nice to receive a certificate with your name on it. At least, it does for me. Maybe it's a weakness or some guilty pleasure, but I'm okay with that.

Some people don't care about that. They believe knowledge is worth pursuing in itself, and the real joy is in learning and seeing yourself get better. Those are really cool people, I'd love to be friends with them, but I'm not one of them.

So my point is that if having a certificate at the end of a course helps motivate you to complete a good course, then paying for that certificate might be worth it. The value is not in the certificate itself. The value is in the motivation it provides, in the case that it does so for you.

For some reason I've noticed the more online courses I take, the less urge I feel to share about it. It's funny now remembering that I felt so happy when I completed the Systematic Program Design on EdX -- one of the first courses I took -- that I literally printed the certificate. But I'm glad such silly things make me happy (https://tenor.com/view/chair-alps-no-shoujo-heidi-heidi-gif-2885451484479610800)

After taking some courses on learning theory and education I understood more about what happened. It turns out that the so called extrinsic and intrinsic motivation aren't opposites. Extrinsic means of motivation -- like badges, certificates, or praise from a teacher -- have a great impact on a learner's motivation and give them a reason to continue.

At some point the learner won't need the external motivation anymore because they started to enjoy the material itself. Barbara Oakley gives a sweet example of how she motivated her young daughter Rachel to start reading books. She did something simple: whenever Rachel completed a book she would give her money. Why not? We all love money. Sometimes simple solutions do magic.

Because she wasn't used to reading books, at first reading itself was so painful, it wasn't a fun activity -- but money made it bearable. The key idea is that reading gets easier the more you read, and at some point it becomes fun. Then Barbara simply stopped rewarding her; there was no need for it anymore, she was already hooked on reading.

It makes so much sense when you think about it. There is no shame in trying to motivate yourself using extrinsic means. Does that resonate with anyone else?

Discussion 2 comments · 5 points · ghassenfaidi · 2026-06-25
Open on HN
Loading the discussion…

Domain filters

Stories from these domains are hidden from every list. Subdomains match too: blocking substack.com also hides danluu.substack.com.

    New collection

    Delete this collection?

    About YAVCHN

    YAVCHN is a reader for Hacker News and Lobsters, with articles and discussions in separate windows or Classic pages.

    Created by Paul Parks and built with PUDL.

    YAVCHN source code on GitHub

    Privacy policy · Terms of use

    Help

    Keyboard

    j / k
    Move down and up the story list. The arrow keys scroll whatever has focus.
    Enter
    Read the marked story in the article reader.
    ]
    Read the next story in the same article-reader applet. Back returns to the previous story.
    p
    Pin or unpin the marked story, which keeps it in Pinned.
    n / N
    Move to the next or previous top-level comment in the window in front.
    c
    Collapse or expand that comment.
    f
    Hide or show the story list.
    Esc
    Close a menu or this help.
    Access key m
    Go to the menu bar. Most browsers take it with Alt on Windows and Linux, and Safari with Control and Option.
    ?
    Show this help.

    Windows

    Each story opens in a window holding its article above its discussion; drag the bar between them to share the room differently. A window can be moved by its title bar, resized from any edge, snapped to a half or a corner by dragging it there, maximised, or minimised to the bar at the foot of the page. Use Window > New reader window to open an empty reader, or Story > Open in new reader window to open another reader for the current article. Docked readers keep their articles when you select another story from the sidebar. Minimized readers can be restored and reused for their site. A window's Next story link reads on down the list in the same window.

    A link in a comment or an article to another Hacker News or Lobsters thread opens that thread in a window too. A link to a single HN comment opens the comment above its replies.

    While a story's window is in front, the Story and Discussion menus in the menu bar hold its commands: pinning, Next story, sorting, collapsing every thread, jumping to the first new comment. Each window also remembers where you were in its article and discussion, so a reload, or Back to a story that Next took you past, finds your place again. Closing a window forgets it.

    The whole arrangement lives in the address, so a bookmark or a shared link brings it back, and Back undoes the last change. Moving between Hacker News, Lobsters, their lists, Pinned and Find changes only the list, and leaves the windows open.

    The list

    The pin at the start of a row keeps the story in Pinned, and the cross at its end hides it. Pinned can be narrowed by words in the title, site or author, by source, and to the stories you haven't opened yet, and ordered by when you pinned them, by points or by comments; the filters are part of the address, so a filtered view can be bookmarked. Scroll past the end of the list to load more. Domain filters, in the View menu, hide every story from a site.

    Collections are named lists of stories. Story > Add to collection files the story in front into one or more of them, and the Collections feed shows them all or one at a time; the menu that chooses collections also creates, renames, and deletes them. A note is your own text on a story. Choose Add note in a story's toolbar to write one; it saves as you type. Rows with a note carry the note mark, and the Notes feed lists every noted story and searches the text of your notes.

    Browsing view

    View > Windowed and View > Classic select the browsing view and save your default in this browser. Window view reuses a reader for each feed. Classic view opens stories and applets as pages. Open as a page is a one-off action that does not change your saved default. Use the Windowed selector to return an article to a window. Direct page links always open as pages.

    Applets

    The Applets menu in the menu bar holds three tools, each a window of its own. Replies to me takes your Hacker News user name and lists the replies to your last thirty comments and stories, checking again every three minutes while it is open, and marking what is new since you last marked them read. Look up a user opens a profile on Hacker News or Lobsters, with their submissions and recent comments, as a commenter's name in any discussion does; the bar at the top of a profile looks up someone else in the same window, and Back returns to the one before. Who is hiring? filters the posts of HN's monthly hiring threads by the words you type.

    They read only what the sites publish to everyone, so none of them asks for a login, and your user name stays in this browser anonymously and is included in retained applet state when signed in.

    Find

    Find takes any link and lists every time it was submitted to Hacker News and Lobsters, so you can read each discussion of it.

    About

    YAVCHN never sees your Hacker News or Lobsters login. The discussion is fetched from each site's public API; to vote or reply, follow the link above the discussion, or the arrow beside a comment, to the source's own site. Without a YAVCHN account, your data stays in this browser. When signed in, pins, collections, notes, blocked domains, and retained reading state are stored with your account and synchronized across devices. Hidden stories and layout stay in this browser. The privacy policy has the details.

    Open source: github.com/paulmooreparks/yavchn. Built with PUDL.