Career Paths

6 Online Courses You Should Take this Winter

3
min read
Justine Schlossmacher

Like most of us, you’re probably feeling cooped up and restless from staying indoors and limiting your time outside due to the coronavirus pandemic. Perhaps unbelievably, you’ve grown a bit tired of binge-watching Netflix or exhausted all the interesting YouTube videos, and you’ve decided you’d like to do something a little more productive with your time. No matter if you’re just looking around for something to spend your time on or one seeking to actively expand your skillset, we’ve got the tools to help make you a jack of all trades. 

If you’re not looking to commit fully to a course and are hesitant to drop real dollars on one, try these free courses out for size!

1. Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

Google’s Digital Garage offers you many different learning opportunities at no cost, from leadership training to lessons on coding, but the only one that includes an official certification is their Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course. With 26 modules teaching you all there is to know about how to optimize your business for every aspect of the online world—be it for search engines, paid advertisement or expanding your business to other countries, there’s no doubt that you’ll learn something new! 

fundamentals of digital marketing

2. CS50: Introduction to Computer Science 

Harvard University’s online learning portal is a veritable goldmine for free online courses that are extremely in depth, niche, and diverse. With programming and computer science only becoming more and more relevant as we progress further into this digital era, why not try your hand at the basics? This broad and detailed course offers you the opportunity to learn how to think algorithmically and solve programming problems efficiently, while becoming proficient in a variety of programming languages, web development, and resource management. It comes with a free audit, but there is also an option to add a verified certificate for USD90, a small price to pay for a module spanning 11 weeks. 

Introduction to Computer Science

3. Business Fundamentals: Project Management 

Maybe you’ve realized while working from home that you would like to improve your management and organizational skills. This course offered by Future Learn assumes you have no prior knowledge of project management and is perfect for beginners looking for a formal yet practice-oriented learning experience. With the course being accredited by EOCCS, the international quality benchmark for online courses in business and management education, you can be sure you’re not wasting your time. 

If you’ve got the budget and want to splash on something more official, try out these paid courses! 

Business Fundamentals: Project Management

4. Graphic Design Masterclass

Courses on Undemy start from 15.99GBP and can get quite expensive, but luckily there are always amazing discounts and promotions to help make your education more affordable. If you’re more of the artsy type, try this course in graphic design while it’s 74% off, coming in at 20.99GBP. The course covers Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, as well as the theories that come with designing and branding such as colour theory and typography. 

Graphic Design Masterclass

5. Excel for Marketers

Though Excel may seem old-fashioned, it has not ceased being extremely useful and relevant in a professional setting. With multiple, versatile uses, learning how to master Excel could save you many hours of stress and uncertainty. On sale right now, from 20USD to just 5, Vanna offers you the chance to become fluent in the way Excel works through 8 chapters and 40 videos. Be it cleaning up raw data to making useful spreadsheets, you’ll learn a new function or time-saving hack with each short video. 

Excel for Marketers

6. HTML Essential Training

HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, is the very basics of website and web application development. In this short six hour course offered on LinkedIn, you can learn how to master various aspects of HTML, especially semantic markup: tagging content effectively, so that a screen reader or a system like a search engine can better understand your content and information. As relevancy is a crucial aspect in maximizing your appearance on search engine results, this is a crucial course if you’re looking to increase website traffic. You can access the course through a free trial which you can cancel at any time, otherwise it costs 24.98GBP a month to gain access to over 16 thousand courses hosted on the site. 

Don’t forget, you can always go to the websites and trawl their search bars or directories to find the exact type of course you’re looking for! There are thousands of online courses out there and the Internet is really your oyster. Happy learning! 

HTML Essential Traning


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