Where to Get Free Online Classes While You’re Stuck at Home
If you’ve always wanted to go back to school, why not make good use of your involuntary downtime at home with a free online class? There are literally thousands of virtual university courses (known as Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs) and one-off videos to help you train your brain and fight boredom without spending a dime.
Here are some sites where you can find free classes.
Coursera
Coursera has nearly 4,000 courses from top universities covering nearly every subject. You can use the quarantine time to learn the language, study particle physics, or study the behavior of chickens (seriously). Many classes can be taken at your own pace and range from a few hours to weeks or months of training.
Several options include a 56-hour course in machine learning at Stanford, a 10-hour course in dog emotion and cognition from Duke, and Yale’s popular 20-hour course in the science of wellness.
Most of Coursera’s content is free, although you can also upgrade to a paid plan to receive official course completion certificates or even enroll in online degree programs.
edX
Like Coursera, edX offers free classes from major universities in all subjects. Many courses are self-paced. Take an 8-week contract law course with a Harvard professor, join a quantum mechanics class at Georgetown, or study food ethics at Cornell.
Cadense
Cadenze specializes in creative fields and offers around 250 courses combining art, design and technology. Here are some of the options available:
- Programming Max: Structuring Interactive Software for Digital Art
- Music theory for beginners
- Creative Sound Programming on the Raspberry Pi
A free account gives you access to most Kadenze courses, as well as discussion forums and a portfolio builder.
DataCamp
DataCamp offers beginner- friendly programming classes and tasks in R, Python, and SQL. Unfortunately, the free account limits your access to the first chapter of each course. However, you can at least understand what awaits you before signing up for a paid subscription.
CodeAcademy
Like DataCamp, CodeAcademy offers free access to its core courses covering a variety of programming languages, but it has more features including HTML, C ++, and Ruby. You will need to upgrade to a paid account to access deeper learning.
Khan Academy
If you’d like to brush up on high school subjects such as grammar, geometry, and biology, check out the free Khan Academy courses . You’ll find everything from exam preparation (maybe it’s time to finally get ready for the LSAT?), To class-specific math and reading that you can work on with your kids, to chemistry and art history for the advanced level. Or try Khan’s courses in Personal Finance and Career Development to help you stay on your feet in this time of economic uncertainty.
You can watch all Khan Academy content for free without creating an account.
Youtube
Whether you want to learn how to play the guitar, build a robot, or get tips for growing a garden, you can find videos on YouTube for pretty much everything. There are a variety of skill-based videos and channels; CrashCourse and TED-Ed channels are good places to find educational content.
Finally, if you’re not sure where to start, or even don’t know what you want to learn about, check out Class Central , which brings together courses from multiple platforms listed here. You can search by subject or school to see options available on Coursera, edX, Udacity, and more.