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Coursera courses you can take for free

10 Coursera courses you can take for free

Ten interesting free online courses: taking online courses can be a great option if you’re looking to develop new skills for a career switch or for personal improvement.  Whether you’re interested in coding, business or being happier in your daily life, you can probably learn it online – often, completely for free.

Coursera is one of the many available options. The platform works not only with the top universities in the world – Stanford, Duke, Penn, University of Michigan, Imperial College London and Johns Hopkins – but also with tech companies like Google and IBM to offer courses in computer science, data science, language, business and a bunch of other areas.

Moonshot News has gathered 10 interesting Coursera courses you can take for free in the fields of Computer Science, Business and Personal Development.

COMPUTER SCIENCE

Introduction to Programming with MATLAB 

Rating: 4.8/5

Time: Approx. 35 hours to complete

This course teaches computer programming to those with little to no previous experience. It uses the programming system and language called MATLAB to do so because it is easy to learn, versatile and very useful for engineers and other professionals.

What will you learn?

  • Fundamental computer programming concepts such as variables, control structures, functions and many others.
  • About various data types and how to handle them in MATLAB.
  • The powerful support MATLAb provides for working with matrices.
  • About file input/output.

Code Yourself! An Introduction to Programming 

Rating: 4.7/5

Time: Approx. 12 hours to complete

Have you ever wished you knew how to program, but had no idea where to start from? This course will teach you how to program in Scratch, an easy to use visual programming language. More importantly, it will introduce you to the fundamental principles of computing and it will help you think like a software engineer.

Data Science Math Skills

Rating: 4.5/5

Time: Approx. 13 hours to complete

Data science courses contain math – no avoiding that! This course is designed to teach you the basic math you will need in order to be successful in almost any data science math course and was created for learners who have basic math skills but may not have taken algebra or pre-calculus. 

Topics include:

  • Set theory, including Venn diagrams
  • Properties of the real number line
  • Interval notation and algebra with inequalities
  • Uses for summation and Sigma notation
  • Math on the Cartesian (x,y) plane, slope and distance formulas
  • Graphing and describing functions and their inverses on the x-y plane,
  • The concept of instantaneous rate of change and tangent lines to a curve
  • Exponents, logarithms, and the natural log function.
  • Probability theory, including Bayes’ theorem.

Cloud Computing Basics (Cloud 101)

Rating: 4.5/5

Time: Approx. 9 hours to complete

This course is designed to teach the basics of Cloud computing: what it is, what it supports, and how it is delivered.It delves into storage services, Cloud economics, levels of managed infrastructure, and Azure services. It also explores different deployment models of Cloud computing, as well as several hosting scenarios.

What will you learn?

  • Explain Azure Services and APIs and how they relate to Cloud computing
  • Identify each of the managed services and explain the differences between them
  • Understand the differences between Cloud deployment models
  • Identify available Cloud Service Platforms and determine which works best for your needs

BUSINESS

The Strategy of Content Marketing 

Rating: 4.5/5

Time: Approx. 19 hours to complete

This course is a partnership between the leading content marketing authority, Copyblogger, and UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education. In this course, you will learn the core strategies content marketers use to acquire and retain customers profitably. 

What will you learn?

  • How to develop, organize and implement a content marketing strategy.
  • How to analyze and measure the effectiveness of content marketing.
  • How to write compelling copy.
  • How to use a strategic framework when writing. 
  • How to build your professional brand and authority through content marketing. 

Marketing Analytics 

Rating: 4.7/5

Time: Approx. 16 hours to complete

This course, developed at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, gives you the tools to measure brand and customer assets, understand regression analysis, and design experiments as a way to evaluate and optimize marketing campaigns. You’ll leave the course with a solid understanding of how to use marketing analytics to predict outcomes and systematically allocate resources.

What will you learn?

  • How to build and define a brand architecture and how to measure the impact of marketing efforts on brand value over time.
  • How to measure customer lifetime value  and use that information to evaluate strategic marketing alternatives.
  • How to design basic experiments so that you can assess your marketing efforts and invest your marketing dollars most effectively.
  • How to set up regressions, interpret outputs, explore confounding effects and biases, and distinguish between economic and statistical significance.

Managing the Company of the Future 

Rating: 4.8/5

Time: Approx. 12 hours to complete

The aim of the course is to provide you with a comprehensive framework for understanding both the traditional principles of management inside companies today, as well as the alternative principles that are becoming increasingly important. It provides both theoretical and practical perspectives on the nature of management in today’s organisations.

What skills will you gain?

  • Management Theory
  • Strategic Management
  • Leadership
  • Management

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Creative Problem Solving 

Rating: 4.4/5

Time: Approx. 14 hours to complete

This course deals directly with your ability for creativity which is a critical skill in any field. It focuses on divergent thinking, the ability to develop multiple ideas and concepts to solve problems. Through a series of creativity building exercises, short lectures, and readings, learners develop both an understanding of creativity and increase their own ability.

This course:

  • Will help you understand the role of creativity and innovation in your own work and in other disciplines.  
  • Will challenge you to move outside of your existing comfort zone and to recognize the value of that exploration.  
  • Will help you understand the importance of diverse ideas, and to convey that understanding to others. 

Creative Thinking: Techniques and Tools for Success 

Rating: 4.7/5

Time: Approx. 20 hours to complete

In today’s ever-growing and changing world, being able to think creatively and innovatively are essential skills. This course will equip you with a ‘tool-box’, introducing you to a selection of behaviours and techniques that will augment your innate creativity. Some of the tools are suited to use on your own and others work well for a group, enabling you to leverage the power of several minds.

What will you learn?

  • Understand what creative thinking techniques are.
  • Comprehend their importance in tackling global challenges as well as in everyday problem-solving scenarios.
  • Select and apply the appropriate technique based on the opportunity to seize or the problem to tackle.

Introduction to Personal Branding 

Rating: 4.4/5

Time: Approx. 7 hours to complete

Though the concept of personal branding isn’t new, questions remain about how to create one and, more importantly, what it means to maintain and inhabit that brand. 

This course will help you:

  • Understand both what personal branding means and what it means to inhabit their brand
  • Establish themselves on at least three social media platforms 
  • Create a mission statement for their personal brand
  • Build a board of directors for their brand
  • Become familiar with the basics of digital security and reputation management
  • Create a system for on-going brand maintenance

 

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