Free Courses That You Can Take During Quarantine
(And Get Certificates for Free!)
With a worldwide pandemic resulting in a worldwide quarantine, it can be difficult to keep up some semblance of normal life. A common rhetoric on social media is to be productive during quarantine and learn something new. While on one hand, I feel as though this rhetoric can be harmful in some ways, on the other hand, it did spur me to find something interesting and fun to do. The pandemic has resulted in lots of organizations giving services at discounted prices and some even for free. One of these organizations includes Coursera, which we will be discussing in greater detail, who have decided to give some of the certificates of their courses for free. Valued at around 30 to 50 USD, it's definitely something that you can take advantage of, whether it's to add to your curriculum vitae (CV) or to your LinkedIn profile.How To Get These Courses For Free
You'll notice that when you click on these sites, it'll take you to the course page where you'll get an overview of what the course is. Click on 'go to class' to go to the Coursera page. There, you'll find the enroll button which will give you two options: the paid course that will give you the certificate and the free course where you get to audit. If you read carefully, the paid course will have an additional sentence mentioning that the discount will be applied at checkout. That discount is essentially the payment of the course! So all you have to do is proceed to checkout with the paid course for a whopping sum of, wait for it, 0USD. You're welcome!
Medicine and Public Health
Here are some courses that would be relevant to medical professionals, medical students or anyone interested in medicine and understanding concepts that are especially relevant to these current times of infections and pandemics.
COVID-19: What You Need to Know (CME Eligible)
3 hours to complete, 1 week long
Starts: 6th May 2020
Opinion: This course is offered by Osmosis which is a pretty big name in the medical education community, so I am already interested and enrolled in this course. It's short, hopefully to the point, super helpful and worth learning about.
Link to course: here.
Disease Screening in Public Health
8 weeks long
Starts: 1st June 2020
Opinion: I've already mentioned how public health could be helpful to be knowledgable about when it comes to the current pandemic situation. This course covers another aspect of this important healthcare subject. However: point to be noted that these courses aren't limited to people with a medical background.
Link to course: here.
Disease Clusters
3 hours a week, 5 weeks long
Starts: 11th May 2020
Opinion: This seems to be a good course that falls under the umbrella of public health. Especially in these times, it might be a good course for healthcare workers to take too since it could give good insight into the state of the world today. It also seems like a good course to take in terms of infectious disease too, which happens to be another potential career choice I have started considering. Definitely going to take this course!
Link to course: here.
Communicating During Global Emergencies
2-3 hours a week, 3 weeks long
Starts: 25th May 2020
Opinion: Emergencies of any kind require good communication since emergencies are often a risky time where small factors can make or break a situation. This course seems super interesting, especially when I am already fascinated by different ways of communication and how to improve them further.
Link to course: here.
How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper (Project-Centered Course)
4 weeks long
Starts: 4th May 2020
Opinion: Since it's a project-centered course, it would be helpful if you already have a research paper that you want to write a manuscript for. I am highly interested in this course, since writing research papers is an integral part of being a medical professional, however, I do not currently have a project that I can use in this course. Nevertheless, this is bookmarked and I will be getting this course the moment I do.
Link to course: here.
Social Media Career And Entrepreneurship
These courses could not only give you some soft skills that could help in an actual career but also help you in a social media career involving blogging and influencing, whether it's something you have already started and need some more insight into or it is something you still haven't started but need some guidance before getting into. During the digital age, these skills might prove to be very useful, regardless of what type of career you are in.
The Strategy of Content Marketing
5 weeks long
Starts: 1st June 2020
Opinion: Content marketing is definitely an invaluable skill to have, especially if you are a blogger or content creator of any sort and want to know the true extent of what you can do. With this course's certificate being given for free, it can also help boost a potential freelancing profile as well. Overall, I think this is a highly interesting and worthwhile course that I will be planning to do as well.
Link to course: here.
Introduction to Personal Branding
5 weeks long
Starts: 18th May 2020
Opinion: Personal branding is super important for anyone who is trying to create a presence on social media, whether it's for your photography or art. This seems like a fantastic course for someone who is interested in creating a brand, but isn't quite ready or sure how to start or what to do.
Link to course: here.
Creative Thinking: Techniques and Tools for Success
2-4 hours a week, 7 weeks long
Starts: 18th May 2020
Opinion: I went through the syllabus of this course and it caught my eye due to some of the tools that this course will be teaching. The main reason why these tools are so important is because I have seen these tools being explained and used in workshops regarding professional medicine. And if these tools can be used in that situation, they can be used just about anywhere.
Link to course: here.
Becoming a changemaker: Introduction to Social Innovation
6 weeks long
Starts: 25th May 2020
Opinion: Necessity is the mother of innovation, as they say. This course seems like it would be interesting to apply when it comes to entrepreneurs or just about anyone really who would be interested in innovation.
Link to the course: here.
Self-Development and Improvement
It's important to constantly work on improving ourselves and sometimes, having a clearly defined map to follow can be helpful. Most of these courses help in the development of valuable skills that can be applied in various settings and situations.
Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments
4 weeks long
Starts: 1st June 2020
Opinion: Arguments and debates are an inevitable part of life, especially with so many polarizing topics that everyone has something to say about. I think this course can be really helpful in learning how to deal with arguments. It's the first course of a 4 part series, but only the first one will give the certificate for free.
Link to course: here.
How to Write a Resume (Project-Centered Course)
4 weeks long
Starts: 18th May 2020
Opinion: The second project-centered course, this one is designed for writing or revamping your resume, which is something I personally struggled with and other people have also talked tp me about. Writing a resume is super important, so this is also one of those courses that I've currently enrolled myself into to help make my resume look nice and shiny. The high percentages of positive career outcomes of previous learners is another added bonus on why it's important to have a good resume.
Link to course: here.
Successful Career Development
7 weeks long
Starts: 25th May 2020
Opinion: The title says it all. Plus, a course that lasts seven weeks implies that there will be multiple different parts to it. The career outcome percentages also look pretty good, so I definitely think this course would be worth a shot, although I'm yet unsure how helpful it might be to me.
Link to course: here.
Psychological First Aid
5 weeks long
Starts: 25th May 2020
Opinion: This course focuses on equipping the learner with some thinking tools that could be applied to a variety of situations. In general, I feel that learning more about thought processes and how to deal with things effectively are useful and interesting, so this is yet another course that I have my eyes on.
Link to course: here.
De-Mystifying Mindfulness
6 weeks long
Starts: 18th May 2020
Opinion: It's said that to be happy and successful, you should practice mindfulness. But what is mindfulness? This course looks like it'll help you learn to incorporate mindfulness into your life.
Link to course: here.
Creative Problem Solving
4-6 hours a week, 4 weeks long
Starts: 1st June 2020
Opinion:
Link to course: here.
Miscellaneous
Here are some other courses that I found interesting but couldn't broadly fit into any distinct category!
Healing with the Arts
6 weeks long
Starts: 25th May
Opinion: This seemed like a great course in terms of getting motivation for writing and making art, so of course I had to add this to the list. The reviews look really good too so I've enrolled for this course pre-emptively and look forward to seeing how it goes!
Link to course: here.
Personal & Family Financial Planning
5-7 hours a week, 9 weeks long
Starts: May 4th 2020
Opinion: it seems like an interesting course, especially for someone like me who has zero idea about financial planning and what it entails. However, the reviews seem to be mixed and the content may understandably be a bit dry. I will have to see for myself what it's like, but it's for now, it's not on the top of my list of courses to do right away. I may consider doing this course several weeks from now.
Link to course: here.
The Language of Design: Form and Meaning
2-3 hours a week, 4 weeks long
Starts: 1st June 2020
Opinion: Just as the title says, this course will be discussing the language of design, the words, and phrases used to describe and critique a design. It's not a course to learn design, but to learn how to communicate and understand the words used in design. It's probably more useful for people who are already involved in design.
Link to course: here.
Ecology: Ecosystem Dynamics and Conservation
5 weeks long
Starts: 4th May 2020
Opinion: Ecosystems and conservation are important terms that are thrown around these days along with global warming and how humans are negatively affecting nature. This course serves to explain ecosystems and various factors in the context of a national park in Mozambique. I think this could definitely be helpful in understanding the importance of ecosystems and how we can help them.
Link to course: here.
Check out more free courses here and find something that you can sign up for today!
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