Section 8 Assist

Use These Online Course Platforms To Advance Your Education And Career

Do you want to avoid in-person learning due to COVID-19? These online platforms help you learn at home, giving you a way to enhance your skills while social distancing. Best of all, they’re either completely free or affordable.

What did the coronavirus bring with it? A shift in thinking and a change in how we learn. Many have turned to online learning to expand their knowledge and skills, but what if you want to do so without enrolling in college or a tech school?

That’s where online course platforms like the ones in this list save the day, as they provide loads of knowledge you can absorb at home that’s affordable or even free. Here are some of the best of the bunch that you can start browsing today.

Udemy

You can find over 150,000 courses through this huge online learning provider. Some of them are free, while others come with an affordable fee. At the time of this writing, over 8,000 courses are available at no cost.

The learning aspect is excellent in itself, but you can also get proof of your time well-spent with certificates of completion that you can share with employers to showcase your skills.

Some of the course categories you’ll see on Udemy include photography, finance, accounting, health and fitness, and office productivity. You’re not limited to just English, either, as there are courses in over 60 languages.

Kadenze

Some of the best colleges and universities have come together to offer online courses here.
Browse its catalog for offerings in art, music, math, design, engineering, technology, and science.

Cognitive Class

If you’re interested in computers, this platform started by IBM offers loads of free courses on data science and cognitive computing. Whether beginner or advanced, you can find classes to suit your skill level. Once completed, you can earn badges to boost your portfolio.

EdX

Over 2,500 online courses from 140 institutions like Harvard and MIT can be found here. Subjects include engineering, business, humanities, language, computer science, and data science. You can earn professional certificates and even college credits to bolster your resume.
Coursera

With over 3,900 courses for students at the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels, you’re bound to find at least one resume booster here. 87 percent of Coursera’s users reported reaping career-related rewards thanks to their courses, so give it a look.

Khan Academy

You may not find a course to suit your needs via this site. Why? Because they’re aimed at students in grades K-12. So, if you were looking for something to help your kids learn, keep this one in mind. It’s loaded with almost every course under the sun for your young ones.

Are these the only online course platforms on the Net? Of course not, but browsing that list should open your eyes to the opportunities out there. With the extra free time that the coronavirus has given many of us, you may want to use it to give some online courses a try.