I firmly believe that only some people need to go to college to succeed in life. Nevertheless, education does not need to be expensive and there are a lot of resources that can help you to improve your career and life. Thus, as a lifetime learner, I made this list of resources for my learning and constantly updated my skills and I think it would be helpful if I share it. Of course, I will not cover the obvious like Coursera of EdX for example.
eRasmussen – Professional Certificates
Rasmussen University has some interesting fully online certificates that include business, project management, information technology, and healthcare management. The certificates are free and they will be including more soon.
freeCodeCamp.org Certificates
freeCodeCamp is a highly recommended website for anyone interested in software development, web design, or data analysis. If you are new to web development, this is a great place to start. The courses are very informative and I always recommend them to my students that want extra practice. Learners from freeCodeCamp had gone on to become successful software developers in top companies.
Kaggle – Certificates
Kaggle is a must-visit if you are into data science and data analysis. They have a vast amount of resources for you to learn data science. Also, the free data sets are very useful to practice your skills and participate in competitions.
Microsoft Learn
Microsoft Learn is a great place to learn everything Microsoft and more. The courses are organized by role which includes developer, solution architect, technology manager, business analyst, business user, administrator, AI engineer, etc. Highly recommended if you want to learn tech in general and not only Microsoft tools.
Google Digital Garage
Google Digital Garage is a collection of courses provided by Google and partner institutions that help you improve your skills in marketing, code, entrepreneurship, business, and others. There are free certificates that can improve your resume if you are starting your career and want to stand out.
Cognitive Class.ai
Cognitive Class is powered by IBM and it offers courses and certificates on Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Docker, Kubernetes, and more. At the time of this writing, Cognitive Class had more than 250 courses and more than 7 million users enrolled. The projects are very hands-on providing real-world experience from the beginning.
HP Life
HP Life is a learning platform with more than 80 courses in different languages. The courses include operations, entrepreneurship, finance, and communication.
OpenLearn by The Open University
OpenLearn was created by The Open University and it has an extensive list of free courses that include computer systems, information security, design, innovation, business, and more. If you are a lifelong learner, for sure that you will find something interesting on their website.
Alison
Alison is one of the services that provide real-world skills for any tech and management jobs. The courses include IT, Healthcare, Languages, Business, Management, Sales, Marketing, Engineering, and other categories. Highly recommended free alternative to major MOOCs. You get a free digital certificate/diploma with the option to pay a small fee for a physical one.
My Own Business Institute – Santa Clara University
My Own Business Institute is great if you want to be an entrepreneur and don’t know where to start. Santa Clara University has courses that will guide you through the process of creating a new business. The courses are free and you get a certificate of completion at the end of the courses.
Charles Sturt University
Charles Sturt University offers free courses in information technology including network administration, project management, and cyber security. Also, it has some research courses in case you would like to become a Doctor in Information Technology.
MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT Open CourseWare is one of the first in providing free education to the masses. If you are starting in tech or college, MIT Open CourseWare is a must-use reference for your classes as a complementary resource that can help you to improve your skills.
Cisco Networking Academy
Cisco Network Academy could be a surprise because Cisco is more related to things on networking. Nevertheless, there are courses for everything tech like cybersecurity, programming, the internet of things, data, information technology, etc. Thus, a lot of the self-paced courses are free and have great quality.
Hasso Plattner Institute – Open HPI
Open HPI provides free courses with certificates of completion by the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI). The courses go from programming, data science, IoT, and cybersecurity, to machine learning. They even offer free bootcamps that I would recommend over any paid bootcamp that could hurt you financially.
Saylor Academy
Sailor Academy offers a long list of university-level courses for free. You can even get college credits for all the courses you took and transfer them to many universities. The only thing is that any course has a small fee for the proctored exam at the end to make these credits official. The cost is $5 for a proctored exam which is very cheap and affordable for most students. The content is free if you just want to learn without the credits as well.
SkillsBuild by IBM
SkillsBild is another IBM learning platform. SkillsBuild is more oriented to free courses that teach relevant skills for the job. The courses include data analysis, artificial intelligence, web development, design, information technology, and entrepreneurship.
Data Science Discovery by the University of Illinois
Are you interested in Data Science and Data Analysis? The University of Illinois provides an online and self-paced course to sharpen your skills in Data Science. In addition, it provides all the resources necessary to succeed in the course and learn the material including guided projects and datasets.
Open Source Society University
The Open Source Society University provides a list of resources for learning computing science at a college level without having to go to the university. All the material provided is free and the recommendation of hours of effort that you should dedicate to finish the courses. If you don’t want to go to college or would like to refresh your skills, this is a good option. But, computer science is not the only program listed. You could find information about math, data science, and bioinformatics as well.
Open Learning
Open Learning is another MOOC that serves as an alternative to popular services like Coursera and EdX. The number of courses is small compared to Coursera. However, there are good free courses in IT and computers, business, education, engineering, design, etc.
Modern States
Modern States is very unique because you can take college courses and receive credits for them. Thus, you can save one year of college by taking the courses and passing the CLEP exams. Modern States even provide you with a voucher to take the CLEP exam for free.
kill Up – USC Online
Skill Up by the University of Southern California is a platform for lifelong learning professionals interested in key skills required today. The courses go from leadership and data visualization to UX design. Not all courses are free but there are enough free courses listed on their site to be considered for this collection.