20+ Free Online Coursera Courses to Pursue

20+ Free Online Coursera Courses to Pursue

Edited By Team Careers360 | Updated on Apr 03, 2024 12:46 PM IST | #Skill Development

Coursera is one of the most reputable online educational portals that offer courses in data science, business, healthcare and even more. In reality, online Coursera courses are from real professors and universities at a fraction of the cost of having an online degree, not just a place to take classes that are like college courses. The platform allows multimedia courses, so teachers can create classes, upload videos, assign & rate quizzes & worksheets alongside other elements that would be present in a “real” college class. The demand for professionals in every field has soared over the years. There are myriad online courses and certifications that you can choose to become an expert in this And online Coursera courses is the best place to start.

And what’s more, the online Coursera courses don’t stop at short certifications. Online degree courses and Online diploma courses are a viable option for those who have many other engagements (work, family, other studies, etc.) Here, once again Coursera comes to the rescue. The platform has partnered with many top institutes in the world and come up with degree, diploma and postgraduate courses.

Online education provider Coursera is now worth more than $1 billion, as per Forbes. Leading experts in their field from world-class universities and corporations are teaching these free Coursera courses. If you are searching for a technical or certified learning programme, or you are about to pick the most appropriate e-learning platform, then these free Coursera courses can be a good pick for you.

List of Coursera courses

Course

Duration

Offered by

The Science of Well Being

19 hours

Yale University

Learning How To Learn

15 hours

McMaster University, University of California

Financial Markets

32 hours

Yale University

Machine Learning

60 hours

Stanford University

Covid 19 Contact Tracing

7 hours

John Hopkins University

Successful Negotiation

17 hours

University of Michigan

English For Career Development

40 hours

University of Pennsylvania

Financial Engineering and Risk Management

18 hours

Columbia University

Algorithms

53 hours

N/A

Seeing through photographs

17 hours

The Museum of Modern Art

Management of Fashion and Luxury Companies

12 hours

Universita Bocconi


Private Equity and Venture Capital

10 hours

Universita Bocconi

Learn to Program

25 hours

University of Toronto

Internet History, Technology and Security

15 hours

University of Michigan

Introduction to Philosophy

19 hours

The University of Edinburgh

Cryptography

23 hours

Stanford University

Buddhism and Modern Psychology

16 hours

Princeton University

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies

23 hours

Princeton University

Computer Science Programming

88 hours

Princeton University

Writing in English at University

24 hours

Lund University

Chemistry

22 hours

University of Kentucky

Note: The above mentioned Coursera certification courses are free for auditing. However if you wish to receive a certificate after completion, then you will have to pay a fee. The fee might vary from course to course.

Note: The above data is collected and compiled by the Careers360 team.

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1. The Science of Wellbeing

One of the finest online Coursera courses, this is for anyone who wants to incorporate positive behaviors into their life. Professor Laurie Santos exposes myths about happiness in preparation for these assignments, irritating aspects of the mind that lead us to think the way we do, and studies that can help us improve.

Course Instructor: Laurie Santos

Advantages

  • The course is going to assist you in coming up with new methods of thinking and reaching your specific goals.

  • The assignments are very practical in nature & will help in realizing what truly makes you happy.

Also read: 20+ Courses on Happiness to Pursue Right Now

2. Learning how to learn- Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects

Taught by Professor Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski, this is one of the best online Coursera courses that offers you immediate access to the invaluable learning methods used in art, music, literature, math, technology, sports, and many other disciplines by professionals. You can hear about how the brain uses two very distinct modes of learning and how it encapsulates information.

Course Instructors: Barbara Oakley & Dr. Terrence Sejnowski

Advantages

  • The course has flexible deadlines that can be reset according to your own schedule.

  • It will provide you with insight about techniques of learning that you have always heard of, but never gave due importance to.

3. Financial Markets

One of the best free Coursera courses, this course focuses on the concepts, processes, and institutions that make risk management and business promotion possible in human society. You will learn about strategic management strategies that lead to financial stability. You will also learn about the core concepts of risk management, behavioral finance w.r.t. to the workings of the securities, insurance, and banking industries.

Course Instructor: Robert Shiller

Advantages

  • This course will definitely help you in making more wise decisions when it comes to finance management.

  • It also motivates students to take up finance in the future as a career prospect.

Also read: Financial Market Overview

4. Machine Learning

Taught by the founder himself, this is one of the best free Coursera courses you can take to learn machine learning. You will learn how to apply the concepts of machine learning in practice. More significantly, you can not only learn about the theoretical underpinnings of learning but also acquire the practical know-how required to apply these methods to new problems quickly and powerfully.

Course Instructor: Andrew Ng

Advantages

  • If you'd like to take your interpretation beyond "model.fit (X, Y), model.predict(X)" of machine learning principles, then this is the course for you.

  • It provides a thorough description of all the listed topics.

Top Trending Courses & Certifications:

5. Covid 19 Contact Tracing

This is one of the best online Coursera courses for learning the science of SARS-CoV-2. These include the clinical presentation of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 transmission process, use of contact tracing and how it can prove effective in containment of the virus. Students can learn how contact tracing is performed, including how to establish relationships with cases and recognize their contacts.

Course Instructor: Emily Gurley

Advantages:

  • A clear explanation of the function contract tracers play is provided by the instructor.

  • Furthermore, the example videos given by the course with the questions inside the lecture will help keep you engaged throughout the lesson.

6. Successful Negotiation- Essential Strategies and Skills:

On a regular basis, we all negotiate. We negotiate with friends, relatives, tenants, car sellers and employers, among others, on a personal basis. The secret to business success, too, is negotiation. We hope you will join the hundreds of thousands of students who have made "Successful Negotiation" using one of the world's most famous and highly successful coursera certification courses.

Course Instructor: George Siedel

Advantages

  • To explain the theory, steps to build a negotiating plan and tips for being a successful negotiator, the course offers a lot of actual cases.

  • By using simple and continuous examples, the course instructor attempts to get the ideas across to the students.

Also read: Successful Negotiation Essential Strategies and Skills BY University of Michigan, Ann Arbor via Edx

7. English for Career Development:

One of the best free Coursera courses intended for non-American speakers of English, this course can help anyone advance their careers in the global marketplace. In this course, when comparing and contrasting the same process in your home country, you will learn about the job quest, application, and interview process in the United States. This program will also offer the opportunity to discover your global career path, while expanding your vocabulary to achieve your professional goals and enhancing your language skills.

Course Instructors: Brian McManus, Robyn Turner

Advantages

  • For beginners and work seekers, this course has a lot of examples that are understandable and meaningful.

  • The course is very focused and delivers a lot about the title of the subject.

8. Financial engineering and risk management

Financial Engineering is a multidisciplinary field in which finance, economics, mathematics, statistics, engineering, and quantitative methods are used. This is one of the best online Coursera courses that focuses on the use of simple stochastic models in various asset classes, including equity, fixed income, credit and mortgage-backed securities, for the purpose of pricing derivative securities.

Course Instructors: Martin Haugh, Garud Iyengar

Advantages:

  • A good overview and detailed description of mathematical models of fixed income and equity as well as derivatives is given in the course.

  • It is very well presented, is simple to follow, interesting and exciting, has arranged and selected content.

Also read: Online Financial Risk Management Courses & Certifications

9. Algorithms

This Coursera Java certification introduces the critical knowledge about algorithms and data structures that any serious programmer needs to know, with emphasis on applications and scientific performance analysis of Java implementations. Part I includes elementary algorithms for data structures, sorting, and searching. Part II focuses on algorithms for graph- and string-processing.

Course Instructor: Kevin Payne, Robert Sedgewick

Advantages

  • For a beginner, the logic of the entire course structure is quite simple.

  • The critical knowledge that any serious programmer needs to know is covered by this course.

Also read: Online Algorithms Courses & Certifications

10. Seeing through photographs

For many of us, taking, posting, and viewing images has become a second nature. This course will help you dig into the significance of pictures and rethink the role of photography in our visual culture, considering our near-constant interaction with photographs. The goal of this Coursera online course is to resolve the difference between seeing and actually knowing images by incorporating a range of concepts, methods and technologies.

Course Instructor: Sarah Meister

Advantages

  • You'll join a group of international learners in discussion groups by enrolling in this course.

  • It will give you a whole new perspective at the work of your own as well as others.

Also read: Which are the best certification courses for Photography in India

11. Management of Fashion and Luxury Companies

Gain an understanding of how fashion and luxury businesses work and their brands, goods, retail, and communication techniques. Travel with industry-influential experts via business models, international growth, and product categories. This Coursera class will cover topics such as the impact of new distribution outlets, new media channels and new industry declines for brands and developing markets.

Course Instructor: Erica Corbellini, Stefania Saviolo

Advantages

  • For anyone who would like to learn the way the fashion industry is organised, this is a fantastic course.

  • For both fashion and business students worldwide, it is a great resource.

Also read: Fashion Design Vs. Fashion Business Management - Which is best and why

12. Private Equity and Venture Capital

One of the best online coursera courses, this course teaches you the business of private equity and venture capital. By the end of this course, you will understand the concepts of business formation, financial support and systems, etc.

Course Instructor: Stefano Caselli

Advantages

  • This course's material is very beneficial and touches on the very relevant Private Equity and Venture Capital subjects.

  • The delivery of Professor Stefano Caseli is also excellent.

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13. Learn to program- the fundamentals

There is a computer programme behind every mouse click and touch-screen tap that makes stuff happen. This Coursera python certification course presents the fundamental programming building blocks and shows you how to learn Python using Coursera and how to use the Python language to write fun and useful programmes.

Course Instructor: Jennifer Campbell, Paul Gries

Advantages

  • This is a perfect course for the fundamentals of refreshing your python.

  • After completing this course, any novice looking to pick up Python basics will be in a comfortable position.

Also read: Online Programming And Development Courses & Certifications

14. Internet history, technology, and security

The influence on our lives, culture, and community of technology and networks continues to increase. The very fact that you can take this online Coursera course from anywhere in the world requires a technical infrastructure over the past sixty years that has been planned, engineered, and installed. We need to understand the workings of network technology to operate in an information-centric environment.

Course Instructor: Charles Russell Severance

Advantages

  • You will not take the Internet and the Web for granted after this lesson. You would be better informed about critical technical challenges facing society at present.

  • You will realise that the Internet and the Web are places for imagination and you can get a deeper understanding of how you can fit into that creativity.

Also read: Online Computer Security And Networks Courses & Certifications

15. Introduction to Philosophy

This online Coursera course will expose you to some of conceptual philosophy's key areas of study. A different philosopher will speak to you about some of the most relevant questions and problems in their field of expertise in each module. You'll start by trying to understand what philosophy is, what its basic objectives and strategies are, and how it varies from other topics.

Course Instructor: Dr. Dave Ward and 8 other instructors

Advantages

  • This course is going to be your first genuine attempt at learning philosophy.

  • It will be an incredible opportunity to learn about various aspects of modern philosophy.

Also read: Online Philosophy Courses & Certifications

16. Cryptography

In computer systems, cryptography is an indispensable tool for protecting knowledge. You can learn the inner workings of cryptographic schemes in this Coursera class and you’ll know how to use them correctly in real-world applications. The course starts with a detailed discussion of how when a powerful opponent eavesdrops and tampers with traffic, two parties that have a common secret key will communicate safely.

Course Instructor: Dan Boneh

Advantages

  • You can learn the intricate details of cryptographic schemes in this class and how to use them correctly in real-world applications.

  • In this reasonably compact programme, a lot of content is covered.

Also read: Cryptography and Network Security BY Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur via Swayam

17. Buddhism and modern psychology

This Coursera degree course will examine how well Buddhism is faring in today’s world. Are neuroscientists beginning to know how meditation "works"? Will such an interpretation justify meditation, or could the metaphysical meaning attributed to it be undermined by physical explanations of meditation? And how do some of the fundamental Buddhist arguments about the human mind hold up? Any particularly disconcerting theories will be closely examined.

Course Instructor: Robert Wright

Advantages

  • This course involves very engaging material and an outstanding pace.

  • This course is an excellent introduction to modern Buddhist thinking as well as evolutionary psychology.

Also read: Top 21 Online Courses For History Graduates To Pursue in India

18. Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency technologies

After completing this online Coursera course, while reading statements about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, you'll know what you need in order to be able to distinguish fact from fiction. To build safe applications that communicate with the Bitcoin network, you will have the conceptual foundations you need.

Course Instructor: Arvind Narayanan

Advantages

  • After this course, while reading statements about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, you'll know what you need to be able to distinguish fact from fiction.

  • To build safe applications that communicate with the Bitcoin network, you will have the conceptual foundations you need.

Also read: 26+ Courses to Understand the World of Cryptocurrency

19. Computer science- Programming with a purpose

One of the best coursera certification courses, this course will begin by incorporating elements of fundamental programming such as variables, conditionals, loops, arrays. Next, it’ll switch to functionality, incorporating core concepts like recursion, modular programming, and reuse of code. Then, a new introduction to object-oriented programming is introduced.

Course Instructors: Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne

Advantages

  • For a full Java novice, this course is the best that you can find on any MOOC site.

  • The content is thorough and well-investigated and the lessons are well-organized.

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20. Writing in English at University

It is important for your success, both at university and in your professional life, to learn strong academic research and writing skills early on. The purpose of this Coursera class is to give you an understanding of the academic writing conventions in English and to show you the components and advantages of what is called process writing.

Course Instructors: Satu Mannie, Ellen Turner and Cecilia Lecaros

Advantages

  • This course will provide you with an understanding of the academic writing conventions in English.

  • It will also show you the elements and advantages of what is referred to as method writing.

21. Chemistry

If you are passionate about chemistry then this is one of the best free Coursera courses available which covers subjects similar to the standard topics developed by the American Chemical Society in advanced high school chemistry classes. This course is a precursor to the Coursera course in Advanced Chemistry. Atomic structure, periodic patterns, chemicals, reactions and stoichiometry, bonding, and thermochemistry are areas that are protected.

Course Instructor: Dr. Allison Soult & Dr. Kim Wood rum

Advantages

  • This course is rather comprehensive, and involves the use of lessons such as laboratory experiments.

  • The main aspect of the course is the amount of problems worked and practiced. One learns by doing, rather than memorizing.

Also read: Chemistry Course

Conclusion

The platform partners with more than 200 universities and businesses to deliver some of the best online Coursera courses which provide real learning opportunities that can be connected to benefits in the real world. If you are still uncertain about how to go about it, then take a look at our online course comparison to have a better clarity in choosing the best online Coursera courses for you.

And it is equally important to check other providers as well. There are many platforms that offer quality education. So to explore further check out our list of online Courses & Certifications from Top Providers which opens up a world to innumerous courses which are related to almost every field.
Explore Popular Platforms Certification Courses

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is a specialization in Coursera?

Coursera Specialisation is a set of similar courses aimed at helping you to learn a particular subject. Many shorter specialisations include as few as three courses and take only a few months to complete. Ten or more courses can be included in longer specialisations and take up to a year.

2. How can I apply for Coursera's financial assistance or scholarship?

If you can't afford to pay for a degree, through the link on the course home page, you can apply for financial assistance or a scholarship. Using the audit mode, you can also access most course materials for free. In a course, learners with financial assistance or scholarships will be required to access all the material of the course and perform all the work necessary to obtain a course certificate. Financial aid and scholarships are only available to the course for which the application has been accepted.

3. How do I see the translated subtitles of Coursera's videos?

Switch on the subtitles to see the translated subtitles for the video and select the language you want to see the subtitles in. You will see what languages for a course are available by reading the overview page of the course. If a language is mentioned, it means at least 80\% of the video subtitles of the course have been translated. You can filter your search when you browse for courses, to find courses that have translations into certain languages.

4. How do I seek a refund for the payment for coursera certification courses?

You can apply for a refund within 2 weeks of your payment if you paid for an individual course or a Coursera Plus subscription. If you have already received a course credential, or if 2 weeks have already passed, you can't get a refund. Your subscription fee is not refundable if you have subscribed to coursera certification courses or a specialty, but you can cancel the subscription for termination of potential future payments.

5. I'd like to change my name on the certificate of my online coursera course. What am I supposed to do?

The name on your online coursera course certificate is the full name that you have used to validate your name or ID. You won't be able to adjust your details once you've set up ID verification. You can request a name change if you're using Name Verification.

6. How can I reset my password on Coursera?

You can update your password using your Settings page if you're already signed in to your Coursera account. You can reset it if you have forgotten your password for Coursera.

7. If I decide to retake an online coursera course, what should I do?

You will be able  retake quizzes and tests and re-do assignments when you choose to take an online coursera course again. Only the most recent grade will be counted. In a course that you have already begun, you can't erase your coursework or reset your progress.

8. What are assignments of honours in these online coursera courses?

For special recognition in the course, some courses have optional honours assignments you may complete. In order to receive a course certificate, honours assignments are not necessary as the grade in the course does not impact you. They do, however, provide extra course-related material. Assignments of honours are not included in all the courses.

9. Do the platform's degree courses have any deadlines?

Degree courses on Coursera have tough deadlines for submissions for assignments. To earn credit, you'll need to complete your individual assignments by the due dates posted in your course syllabus.

10. What are the programs of Capstone?

Capstone Projects are hands-on projects that allow you to apply what you have learned to a practical question or issue relevant to the subject of study in a specialisation. Some specialisations finish with the Capstone Project.

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