Online Courses That Are Actually Worth Taking

There has never been a better time to learn—not only is the web awash with educational platforms, but if you’re still working from home, it’s an easy way to make productive use of your nonexistent “commute” time.

Websites such as Udemy, FutureLearn, EdX, and Coursera offer practical, skills-based courses for free or very low cost, with some carrying actual qualifications for an additional charge; some are taught in collaboration with universities, while others are from independent experts. LinkedIn and Alison have short courses on everything from marketing to the basics of Instagram, and sites such as Masterclass and Skillshare get the best of the best to teach everything from acting to writing, with one-off course fees or subscriptions starting from $15 a month.

You may not have to go it alone, either: If there’s a course that could help in your job, an employer might pay for it. Some employers offer a subscription to one of the above services or a catalog of such classes as a benefit; in that case, it’s a smart move for HR or team leaders to curate a selection that is relevant and high quality in order to help employees get started without feeling overwhelmed.

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This is the slightly boring section, where you know better than I do what you need. After all, I don’t know what you do for a living—but I’m sure it’s very interesting and you’ve very good at it.

Whatever your role, there is undoubtedly a key “hard” skill that will help you do your job better: Digital marketers should learn at least the basics of SEO, recruiters may want to consider taking diversity training, and anyone with a budget to manage would do well to become known as the local master of spreadsheets. Those looking to climb the corporate ladder would be wise to take management training of some sort, if only to have a ready answer to questions about your suitability for promotion.

There’s plenty of free or cheap qualifications to be had when it comes to technical or business training. On Coursera, there’s professional certificates for Google-specific skills, from IT support to UX design, with similar courses offered by AWS and Microsoft, among others. Udemy has a host of programming introductions and masterclasses, IBM has its own Skills Academy, FutureLearn has a class from HR organization CIPD about line management, and EdX has a long list of business courses from Harvard and more.

That said, don’t feel limited by the skills you need for day-to-day work. Instead, educate yourself on the areas of strategic importance for your employer.

Are the higher-ups at your company obsessed with AI? Learn more than they know, with classes about how AI can be used in business decisionmaking or the ethics of AI. If you can get through Andrew Ng’s Stanford machine learning class on Coursera, you’ll know more than the entire C-suite combined.