Recently, I have been trying to learn motion graphics and After Effects to up my video production game. After watching a huge number of tutorials on YouTube, I ended up making a couple of videos. But, I still felt the direction was not on point and the storytelling could have been better. I needed guidance or more of a person to introspect my work and provide insights.
For me, it’s hard to make time to attend a physical session or class. So, I took the online route and stumbled upon Preply – an online education platform. I took a lesson on video post-production and the experience was worth drafting in a review. So, here’s my review of Preply which will help you decide on taking up a course on it.
Preply originally started in a few European countries as a language teaching platform. It was a hub for tutors to teach languages like English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, etc. Later on, Preply expanded to numerous countries and incorporated professional teaching courses. These courses covered a vast amount of topics ranging from web development to artificial intelligence to business development and project management.
Read: Best Duolingo Alternatives to Learn a New Language
It also features courses for school-level topics like Maths, Algebra, History, Geography, Biology, Chemistry, etc. There are several tutors for individual topics and all the tutors listed are verified by the Preply administration.
How different is it from YouTube?
The most obvious question that gets in your head – Why should I choose Preply over YouTube? The same question occurred to me and if I had to sum it up in one line. YouTube is more of like a session which you attend with hundreds and thousands of people and are often generic in nature. Whereas, Preply, is more of like a therapy session which is private and the remedies offered are applicable only to you.
If you go ahead learning a topic on YouTube, it really gets overwhelming with several tutorials and a sea of knowledge out there. You don’t get a roadmap or personalized answers for your queries. This is where platforms like Preply step in. You get personal guidance and introspection of your own work which really helps in the long run.
Preply booking
The UI of Preply is fairly simple and doesn’t require any prior technical knowledge. Firstly, you will have to register on the website which is free. Later, you pay per session you take instead of a subscription model. Once you get in, you have to search tutors for your topic of interest. To do that, click on the Find Tutors button just beside the Preply logo.
You will be redirected to the search page where you will have pretty basic search filters. The first filter “Tutor Teaches” is for selecting the course you are interested in. In my case, I selected the video post-production. Further, you can apply more filters like Price per Hour, country preference, available time and day. However, the tutor gets to decides the time of the lesson according to his availability. I suggest you apply more filters because that helps to get an ideal tutor. Meanwhile, when you are applying the filters, the search list keeps on populating in real-time.
To know more about a tutor, you can read their introduction and reviews from other students. It’s compulsory for every tutor to have a video introduction which will better help you understand their accent and approach. You can also contact the tutor via the inbuilt chat to gain more information. By default, the first session with a new tutor is of one hour and 100% refundable. You can make the payment via PayPal or Visa/Mastercard. The refund has to be claimed within 72 hours if you didn’t like the course.
If you are happy with the tutor after your first introductory course, you can buy more hours on Preply. However, Preply allows purchase in batches of 5,10,15 and 20 hours. So, after the first course, you will have to make a minimum purchase of 5 hours.
My Personal Experience
I took a course on video post-production since I have a fair bit of knowledge about the subject. Booking a session and connecting to it is simple with just a mere number of clicks. The video and audio quality on the platform is good. I had only 1 connection drop but that was due to poor Internet connection. Apart from that, the 1-hour session went flawlessly.
The tutor I selected had extensive knowledge about story-telling and video post-production tools like Premiere Pro and After Effects which was what I was looking for. I had previously sent him my queries and video links via the message option. It was amazing that he had gone through it and was well prepared. Throughout the lesson, I got some spectacular insights which I noted down on my book. It would be appreciated if Preply can embed a note-taking utility within the video call app.
The only thing I would complain about is the novelty of the platform. Preply is still expanding and the tutors no doubt have good knowledge about the subject but lack teaching skills. The guy I had a session provided some spectacular insights on my own videos but the information was pretty scattered. This could be an extremely personal experience but worth pointing out.
Closing Words
Well, I would recommend Preply to anyone. If you lack the time for attending a physical session, Preply is worth giving a shot. The entire teaching model really works in favor of the student as you get to try out your first session for free. If you book more sessions, there are discounts on board which are beneficial. In case, you are a teacher looking for Preply tutoring jobs, you can find open vacancies here.
For more queries or issues regarding Preply, let me know in the comments.
This post is sponsored by Preply.
