Cat Prep – Offline? Online-Live? Online-Self-Study?

Pros

All the advantages of a face-to-face real-time interaction i.e. an effective two-way communication with non-verbal clues included.

A peer group to study with – can be of a lot of help if one studies well with a friend or in a small group.

Fixed routine of regular visits to the center and attend class with friends/peers results in more disciplined attendance.

Cons

The same class-flow and pace for all students. Usually benefits average students; better students are not challenged enough and can actually learn much more in the same time; weaker students yet feel the pace to be fast.

Limited choice of faculty – will have to do with those available at the nearest centre. Any star faculty will be rotated across batches and not available for all the classes in a batch.

Requires regular commute to the center and hence more time consuming.

If a class is missed, it is missed – very inconvenient to catch-up in another batch/timing without affecting the flow.

Classes are at fixed time during the day, which may not be the best timings that one would prefer.

Very expensive (Rs. 50,000-70,000 v/s Rs. 10,000-20,000 for online courses)

Pros

Choice of faculty independent of where you stay – one can choose to join a course where one’s favourite faculty teaches. While all classes may still not be taken by your favourite faculty, atleast you get a majority of classes of a faculty who is otherwise not available in your city.

Usually late night classes are also available, for those who prefer this timing.

Can watch recording of missed classes and also that of attended classes if one has not understood while in live class.

Attend classes from comfort of your home without any time wasted in commute.

Quite economical.

Cons

Attending a 1.5-2 hours online live class, sitting alone at your desk at home, is very tedious, much more than you may think. Experience sitting through atleast 3-4 such sessions to know if they work for you.

In the same time, the content covered in an online live class, is quite less than that covered in physical live class or in recorded concept videos. It is a lot of time wastage – what can be taught in 1 hour, easily takes upward of 1.5 hours to be taught in a live online class. If one has just 2-3 hours in a day to spare for prep and one attends a 2-hr class listening and learning what one could have learnt in 80 minutes, it is very inefficient usage of time, and which drastically reduces your self practice time.

While technology allows two-way audio communication, interactions are not seamless – they are choppy/garbled, cutting-in-and-out of conversational flow, dropped audio, background noise, long pauses, etc. Except a couple of students, no one uses a microphone. And asking doubts through chat messages is practically useless, wastes hell lot of time for all and is alienating to most.

Even though it is live, there are no advantages of a live face-to-face interactions – no non-verbal clues or visual feedback to teacher, practically no two-way communication, no monitoring and instead more distractions, no attention grabbing that accompanies face-to-face interactions.

Too easy/convenient to skip classes, especially when recordings are available. In our experience, attendance is very low and erratic. And if recordings are to be watched, then why choose a course with live classes? Also recordings of live classes are not as great as those recorded for self-study.

Limited peer group to help prepare.

Screen-fatigue. Also have seen students access the entire course on their phones, which I just cannot understand how is it even possible; you will need a laptop/desktop with good ear-phones. And a dedicated personal study space with no disturbances at your home.

Pros

Byte sized videos. You spend only 5-15 minutes watching a recorded video explaining a sub-topic/concept. And then you practice questions on that sub-topic/concept. No tedious long videos; learning and practicing sub-topic/concept wise.

Entire course taught by your favourite faculty.

Completely flexible timings – 24/7, can change every other day, no limitations of any sort.

No commute, can watch at faster speeds, can rewind/re-watch, can bookmark specific moments in the video to re-visit/revise.

Most economical of the three formats compared here.

Cons

Needs very high level of discipline to show up regularly at your study-desk and to complete the course. Most students buy the course because of it being cheap, but many dont even cover 50% of the course, the course just gets side-lined with long gaps of not logging in also.

No peer group to help one prepare. It is preparation mostly in isolation. So need to have an independent temperament to study.

Screen-fatigue. Also have seen students access the entire course on their phones, which I just cannot understand how is it even possible; you will need a laptop/desktop with good ear-phones. And a dedicated personal study space with no disturbances at your home.