In today’s day and age, it is no doubt that learning has been revolutionised. Once an activity reserved for the privileged, learning has not only become cheaper and convenient but open to access for anyone on the Internet. In fact, there are tons of online courses that can be obtained through legitimate ways by you for free.
Here’s how you can acquire skills and add it into your LinkedIn profile.
Udemy: YouTube for Learning
Known as the leading global learning platform, Udemy is extremely affordable for students and offers”all-year” round promotions for students. Even if a course is paid, there is usually a 30-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the course in any way.
What a steal right!
But did you know that Udemy has a secret stash of free courses too?
Search up something that you have an interest in and select All Filters > Price > Free.
Guidesify understands that this filter is not available for all countries but if you are one of those unlucky ones *ahem* Australia, fret not! Teachinguide seems to have a free online tool just for that and covers all main course categories on Udemy.
But… if you are too lazy to search, we have done it for you too. Here are the top free courses (*subject to changes) that you can consider!
1. Wannabe Coders: Programming 101
Taught By: Technical Instructor Lawrence Turton
Image source: TNW
A complete novice. You will be able to comprehend basic foundational knowledge of hardware, networking, programming and licensing. With over 46,000 students enrolled and a commendable overall rating of 4.5 stars on Udemy, this free course will really get you going.
More Programing and Technology:
1. Python Basics: Introduction to Python Programming
2. Machine Learning: The Top 5 Machine Learning Libraries in Python
3. Data Science: Introduction to Data Science using Python (Module 1/3)
4. Cloud Computing: AWS Concepts
5. SQL Syntax and Database Concepts: Introduction to Databases and SQL Querying
6. Learn A Programming Language: Javascript Essentials
2. Starting A Business: The making of a great entrepreneur
Taught By: Founder & CEO of The Entourage Jack Delosa
Being an entrepreneur since the age of 18, Jack Desola has built several companies and had also spent some time with big shots like Richard Branson himself. In this course, he will share his research coupled with his own experience with you. Hopefully, his teachings will shed some light on how you can start the very next big thing.
3. Write Better: Secret Sauce of Great Writing
Taught By: Former Wall Street Journal Editor Shani Raja
A teacher and mentor for top journalists around the world, Shani Raja will bring your writing to new heights by teaching the 4 main ingredients to great writing. Let your writing stand out now!
4. Become A Team Leader: Introduction to Project Management
Taught By: Martin V., PSM, SAFe, PMP, CSSBB
This course teaches you a lot on the essential soft skills you will require to manage risk, change and people. Being a project manager is no easy work. You will learn how to close or transition a project with ease, understand common project management approaches and execution.
5. Hyperthinking: improve your day to day learning & creativity
Taught By: Digital Masterclass – Online Series
The world is changing fast and most of us are not catching up fast enough for success. This is a short but effective 1.5 hours course, designed to shift your perspectives and get more positive results. Learn how to find creative solutions and stay one step ahead of others.
LinkedIn Learning: Unlocks Courses For You For 24 Hours?!
LinkedIn Learning is slightly more tricky. There is no way of filtering free courses from premium ones unlike on Udemy.
This means that the only way to find out whether a course is free by clicking on each course individually. Scroll down to the overview page of each course and check whether the contents are locked. If the padlock symbol is absent, congratulations! This course is definitely free to watch.
To make it more intuitive, you can minimize the amount of trial and error needed by referring to the trending page of the LinkedIn Learning landing page. These courses usually have more than 100,000 students enrolled and highly likely to be free for all.
LinkedIn also provides users with a free month of premium subscription which can be utilised to view any premium course for free.
If your subscription has ended, LinkedIn occasionally gives selected premium courses unlocked for 24 hours only when visiting your feed. Be sure to keep a lookout for those!
As usual, we have saved you the trouble and listed a few free courses to give you a quick headstart. Take note these courses may not be free in the future. Be sure to enrol and save for later!
1. Spreadsheet Master: Excel 2016 Essential Training
Taught By: Principal at Taylor Associates Dennis Taylor
Forget the fancy software, Excel is still the greatest spreadsheet program used by the world. Learn how to enter and organize data, perform calculations with simple functions, work with multiple worksheets and workbooks, format the appearance of your data and cells, and build charts and PivotTables.
2. The New Marketing Age: Online Marketing Foundations
Taught By: Chief Learning Officer on LinkedIn Learning Brad Batesole
Be it SEO, social media, or video marketing, this course covers it all. You will be fully equipped with skills that will help you with the marketing strategy of your online business and navigate today’s online landscape.
3. Going Hand in Hand: Content Marketing Foundations
Taught By: VP of Marketing Dayna Rothman
Content is important to tell the right story to your target audience. The course explores building a content plan, choosing content types, and developing an editorial schedule. It also demonstrates how to write, edit, and design content, determine the right mix of content and curate it for maximum impact, and closes with tips and tricks on measuring the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts.
4. Scripting Language of the Web: JavaScript Essential Training
Taught By: Instructor, educator, speaker at LinkedIn Learning Morten Rand-Hendriksen
Once seen as optional, JavaScript is now becoming an integral part of the web, infusing every layer with its script. This second javascript course that we have listed in this guide will cover Javascript basics as well and also introduce you to ES6 and the basics of JavaScript libraries.
5. Style a Website: CSS Essential Training 1
Taught By: Web Developer + Educator Christina Truong
A stylesheet language to control the appearance of your website. Explore the foundations of the CSS language and practice adding colours and design elements to your webpages.
6. Get Started in Video: Learning Video Production and Editing
Taught By: Video and Motion Graphics Artist Rob Garrott
This course will point you in the right direction for relevant resources getting the skills required to break into the video world.
Top Free Online Courses Recommended by LinkedIn Blog
Here are 10 more absolutely free online courses on LinkedIn Learning that may prove useful to you:
1. Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, on Managing Compassionately
2. Guy Kawasaki on Entrepreneurship
3. J.T. O’Donnell on Making Recruiters Come to You
5. Fred Kofman on Managing Conflict
6. Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh on Creating an Alliance with Employees
8. Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant on Option B: Building Resilience
9. Sallie Krawcheck on Risk-Taking
10. Jodi Glickman on Pitching Yourself
Udacity: Once an Experiment, Now Democratising Education
With over 190 free online courses of varying skill levels for almost every on-demand skill, Udacity sees the potential to educate at a global scale. The purpose of Udacity is to offer world-class higher education to virtually anyone on Earth with an internet connection and a passion to learn.
This mission would thus, help to offer aspiring learners across the globe equal opportunity to partake some of the most exciting and innovative fields in today’s ever-changing world.
Of course, there are also paid Nanodegree programs that you can choose to pursue in at Udacity.
1. Speed up your Website: Website Performance Optimization
Taught By: Udacity Course Developer Cameron Pittman & Google Engineer Ilya Grigorik
Make your web pages blazing fast on all devices. Learn how to dive into the recommendations from Google PageSpeed Insights and achieve immediate performance boosts.
2. School of Autonomous Systems: Self-Driving Fundamentals
Taught by: Udacity x Baidu Apollo
Study different ways to predict how other vehicles or pedestrians might move in Apollo self-driving cars. Explore the basics of self-driving cars and the Apollo Architecture. Sign up and take a first look into pursuing a self-driving car engineering career.
Other Notable Free Online Courses
These course sites do not offer all ranges of professional skills to learn but are definitely worth mentioning.
1. Become a Great SEO Specialist: SEMrush Academy
SEMrush, an award-winning software suite, has also released its own range of marketing courses that can help you pursue a path in online marketing.
Courses include Social Media Marketing (SMM) with Neal Schaffer to SEO Fundamentals Course with Greg Gifford.
These courses will teach you the fundamentals and familiarise you with SEMrush mainstream software and online tools.
2. Learn from the Titan: Google Academy
Google is known for owning many of the favourite services you use. From YouTube to Google Ads to even Waze, the community-based navigation app, explore everything that the academy has to offer. Become an ad powerhouse today!
Do note, however, that most certificates issued by the academy are subjected to a 1 year expiry period. You must renew the license by retaking the exam every year.
3. Learn For Free Forever If You Are Diligent: FutureLearn
There are a few drawbacks about learning free on FutureLearn. For starters, there is a time constraint to finish any course and the absence of a digital certificate. The Unlimited plan costs $329 per year.
Free users only have access to the course for its duration + 14 days, regardless of when you registered for the course and you will not be able to prove to anyone on LinkedIn that you have learnt something. Well, but that is not the purpose you are trying to take up new courses right? Yep, then you are good to go.
Oh, wait there’s more.
Futurelearn works a little different from the rest of the learning platforms online. Courses have lessons each week that is given a descriptive name. It’s best to join at the start as recommended by Futurelearn so you can get involved with discussions and have your questions answered by other learners and course educators.
Joining a course late will mean missing a bulk of the discussions that have already taken place prior to your registration. Hence, if you are not on the Unlimited plan, you will not have the freedom of enjoying the course as and when you like.
• More will be listed soon…
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