Earn a higher education without spending a fortune on college -- or leaving your couch. Coursera offers an extensive online course catalog that will help you build skills and learn from the world's best. It partners with hundreds of leading universities and companies to give college students an experience unlike any other. Plus, it's welcomed 66 million people who seek new careers or want to strengthen their knowledge in certain subjects.
You can enroll in free courses at Coursera, such as Machine Learning from Stanford University, Chinese for Beginners from Peking University and English for Career Development from the University of Pennsylvania. These run approximately 4-6 weeks and provide on-demand video lectures, discussion forums and homework exercises. However, for paid courses, you'll receive quizzes, projects and, most importantly, a course certificate that you earn upon completion.
If you're interested in gaining a skill related to your current job, check out one of Coursera's Guided Projects. These range from beginner to advanced, start as low as $9.99 and can take under two hours to complete. A certificate will also be available once you're finished. Some recent additions to the Coursera Project Network include Create a Virtual Classroom Using Google Slides for personal development, Introduction to Project Management and Create Your First Python Program.
Specialization Certificates can be had once students accomplish a series of courses (at their own pace). For example, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign currently teaches 190 hours -- divided into seven courses -- of Digital Marketing on Coursera.org. Coursera's Professional Certificates, on the other hand, are great for those who are looking to begin a different career path. Affordable training programs from IBM and Google are right at your fingertips.
Believe it or not, Coursera has flexible master's and bachelor's degree programs, too. They're taught by well-respected and high-ranking professors from top schools. And you'll save on tuition far more than you would if you attended classes on campus; don't worry, financial aid is still accepted. Choose an online degree in business, data science, computer science and engineering or public health. Coursera.org has all the information you need.
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Top Online Courses
While there are thousands of courses to explore and hundreds of free classes on Coursera, learners have made their favorites known. One of them is Data Analysis with Python, offered by IBM. It teaches you the basics of Python before showing you how to build data pipelines, perform statistical analysis, predict future trends and much more. Rated 4.7 overall, it's worth every penny.
What if you're someone or know someone that wants to fine-tune their English-speaking skills? An instructor from the Georgia Tech Language Institute conducts a popular five-week course called Speak English Professionally: In Person, Online & On the Phone. Your vocabulary increases and pronunciation and fluency improve, which will help you navigate the world better. In fact, 54% of students say they got a tangible career benefit after completing the course.
Another big hit with Coursera users is Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure, an intermediate course that delves into the computing and storage services available in GCP. That includes Cloud Storage, Cloud Spanner, App Engine and Google Bigtable.
You'll also notice Intro to Programming with MATLAB near the top of everyone's list. MATLAB is an easy-to-learn programming system and computer language that's proved vital for engineers and other professionals. It's ideal for writing moderate-size programs in just a few lines as opposed to using complicated languages like Java. Plus, each student will receive a MATLAB Online license for the course at no charge.
Top Online Specializations
Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng heads up the Deep Learning Specialization, which is heavily favored by technology students. Not only do they master deep learning through a series of courses, but they develop newfound skills for Convolutional networks, Python programming, Tensorflow, machine learning and more.
Coursera's Data Science Specialization is a 10-course introduction brought to you by Johns Hopkins University. Toward the end of the series, you'll be asked to build a data product using the skills you've gained up until that point. These involve R programming, regression analysis, data cleansing and data manipulation.
Business Foundations, Business Analytics and Excel Skills for Business are all sought-after specializations, too. The latter ensures you're an Excel whiz who can handle any pivot table, graph, spreadsheet or professional dashboard thrown your way.
Did you know that you can specialize in self-driving cars online? Coursera teams up with the University of Toronto to present a seven-month-long training series. By the end, students will be able to build a self-driving software stack and apply for work in the autonomous vehicle industry.
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