The Online Courses and Where to Find Them?

The Internet has revolutionized education in a way that we have never seen before leading to the age of online learning and MOOCs.

Learning new topics out of interest or to change our career path and open a new avenue of opportunity or to update ourselves with the latest technologies, whatever the reason, Online courses have made all of it possible to professionals and students alike.

In this particular post, I would like to share my insights, suggestions, and experiences with various interesting online learning platforms out there that I have come across and used and might be useful for everyone alike.

The First Steps:

• Identify want you really want to learn. Passion towards something gives us a definitive purpose that acts as a driving force to complete that we started. Many begin learning through online courses as most of them are freely accessible but only a few complete until the end.
• Pursue your interest and never do it for namesake.
• Always have a timetable planned so that it will be ensured that you are spending enough time on the coursework
• Also, why do you want to learn it? Understanding that is important as well!

Let me start with some of the popular platforms and then go on with some lesser known interesting resources that could sometime prove to be really useful.

1. EdX (https://www.edx.org/)

Got a topic or a subject in your mind, you can find it here, almost anything you can think of to learn. EdX has a huge collection of courses from various universities as well as top MNCs like Microsoft and all of them are available to audit for free! You will only need to pay if you want a verified certificate. I personally prefer this website with its simple interface and excellent diversity it provides and I have done a couple of courses offered by Microsoft through this unique platform.

2. Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/)

This is another excellent online resource with a wide diversity of courses ranging across various domains of scientific and non-scientific fields as well. However, there is limited accessibility in the free track for graded material and assessments. They also provide paid certification that can be used to showcase your newly learned skill-set. In my initial days as an online learner, I have used this platform. Some specific courses here are highly rated, useful and well recognized like the Machine learning course by Stanford University.

3. Udemy (https://www.udemy.com/)

This is another massive online open learning platform with a huge number of courses offered by individual instructors or organizations. There is a mix of paid and free courses, all of them offering certification as well. The free courses provide the certification after completing the course at no cost. It’s target audience however appears to be working professionals rather than the student community. Here, you can find courses delivered by experts on specific and unique topics.

4. Udacity (https://in.udacity.com/)

Another interesting platform that offers specialization in topics of interest in their flagship Nanodegree programmes. With partnerships from elite organizations like Google, this is one platform worth to be checked out. Most courses are in the science and technology domain and the number of free courses is limited.

While these are some popular websites, there are a few exciting platforms I have come across that are lesser known but offer some great online learning experience.

The not so well known online course platforms:

1. Cognitiveclass.ai (https://cognitiveclass.ai/)

This is where you should be if you are a Machine learning/Artificial Intelligence/Data Science enthusiast. This platform sponsored by IBM exclusively offers courses in this domain and also provides free certificates to those who successfully complete their courses. This might as well be the ideal platform to start with for students who wish to pursue their career in those fields.

2. Stanford Lagunita (https://lagunita.stanford.edu/)

This is pretty much like the Stanford version of EdX. Exclusive courses by Stanford University are offered through this platform. They also provide certifications like the other platforms. This could be your chance to associate yourself with Stanford University in the comfort of your home.

3. Free Code Camp (https://www.freecodecamp.org/)

Interested in Web development? HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Javascript, jQuery, etc are some of the so many things you want to learn about but no idea where to start? This is exactly where you should start. A brilliant interactive platform with excellent tutorials on web development, complete their coursework and you might as well start your career as a full stack web developer by the end of winter. Everything is available for free including the certifications they provide. The best part of my experience with using this platform was their structure in their coursework which starts from the very basic fundamentals to advanced operations. They also have a lot of development projects that are to be done as a part of the course which one can add to their portfolio as a web developer. This website is rapidly expanding with many more computer science based tutorials, and is one of my personal favorites!

4. Sololearn (https://www.sololearn.com/)

This is actually an Android app (you can also learn online) that is available to download free at google play store. New to programming? Don’t know anything about coding? This is exactly where you should start learning. This was one of the places where I first learned programming from scratch. The app offers free tutorial courses in various programming languages. Explained remarkably from basic syntax to advanced topics like OOPS and File handling, an amazing resource for beginners. On successfully completing the tutorial courses, they provide with an absolutely free certificate! Beautiful, ain’t it? They have tutorials for all commonly used programming languages.

The End Notes:

While there are so many platforms to learn from, it is all the more essential to focus on a few things, not getting overwhelmed by the various options we have to choose from. These platforms have definitely helped me up skill and are absolutely worth the time.

The original version of this article was first published on LinkedIn by me here

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