5 Best Online Course Sites Every College Student Use (Most are Free)

Online courses are becoming the norm. They are easily accessible with a steady internet connection, they can be completed at the time and pace or your preference, you can learn anything you want to with a simple Google search and the correct subject planning. However, finding these online courses can be tricky.

Although the internet has a huge cascade of a variety of courses, it becomes difficult to find authentic courses that will suit your needs. Are they coming from a reliable source? Who is teaching these courses? It is really worth the price? I had all these questions lurking in my mind when I started out using the online course sites. I wanted to learn a little more than my degree offered. Something like a course on organization methods, or just get a hang of coding. The internet has a lot in store for us!

Throughout my four years of undergraduation, I have come to use some particular sites more than others. These sites are reliable, with professors from accredited universities teaching high-quality courses. Thus, I have decided to put together an online course website list of my favourite educational sites that offer amazing courses just for you.

In this article, I will be talking about the kind of subjects these sites have, if it is taught by university profs or professionals, if the course offered is paid or unpaid and what kind of a student will benefit the most from that particular site. If you want to keep reading such articles that might prove useful for you and get some goodies on the way don’t forget to subscribe to my email list at the end of the post!

Let’s get started with the different online course sites!

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Why Use an Online Learning Platform?

Most of you reading this must be wondering ‘I am already in university, why do I need to look up online courses?’. If this is you, then do read this section. Online course sites are great ways to find courses that sometimes might not be offered in university that might help you get on track with your career or personal development goals.

Online course sites also great to study the courses which might not provide satisfaction to you in the classroom. Many times, students might not be accustomed to particular profs teaching, and this is when the online platform comes to the rescue. Yes, you could read books. But with our generation videos or visual aids seem to have a better effect. Books can then supplement these teachings.

1. Udemy

• A little bit about Udemy

Udemy is a versatile learning platform. The site was founded by Eren Bali in 2007. In 2010, Bali, Oktay Caglar and Gagan Biyani launched the website.  It currently has around 30 million students and over 100K courses in a variety of topics.

Udemy is a place where you will find a course created by top professionals in about anything and everything. It is a website where anyone can sign up to become an instructor. All the instructors with paid courses have a profile evaluation is done on them, which can prove authenticity.

• What kinds of courses does it offer?

Udemy offers a range of various courses. If you are looking for starting a blog like this one, you can find a course that suits your needs in an instant. If you are looking for something a little technical, say a coding lesson, you have come to the right place. Because of its ease of putting out courses in form of videos or power points, Udemy is the perfect place to look for a course of your need.

It is divided into 12 categories ranging from development to music and engineering. If you want to check out the categories you can go to www.udemy.com. Although I learnt about Udemy a little late in my college life, the courses I did take have helped me a lot! I sure do regret not knowing about it earlier than I did, and you should definitely check out some of their courses. If not, you are missing out on something!

• Is it paid or unpaid?

Udemy has a wide range of free courses offered by various instructors. It also has some amazing paid courses at very small and discounted prices. The instructors offering paid courses have had their profiles evaluated. As almost anyone can put up a course on Udemy, the rating system provides a great solution to looking up courses which can be helpful to you.

So be sure to read the ratings and reviews before you dive in and take the course. I will also be doing some Udemy course reviews in a future post. If there is a course you would like me to review do comment below or send me an email at nupurspeaks15@gmail.com. You can join Udemy’s 30 million, courses now as low as $9.99!

• What kind of students does it suit?

Being one of the best online course sites, Udemy is a great fit for a variety of curious peeps like yourself. It is made for a budding developer who is looking to enhance his/her skills, a coder looking to learn a new language, an engineer wanting to learn more about their subject of interest, a business-man/woman wanting to delve in online marketing. It is a place filled with a numerous number of topics.

As I said earlier, it has over 100K courses to chose from.

2.  Coursera

• A little bit about Coursera

Coursera is one of my favourite online course platforms or a Massive Open Online Course aka MOOC. Founded by Stanford professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Coursera offers courses in business, web development, engineering etc. from Universities and colleges around the globe.

It has recently started offering full-length online degrees from recognised universities. You can even apply for financial aid from the site.

• What kinds of courses does it offer?

Coursera offers courses in Mathematics, science, arts, humanities, business, health, personal development, social science, etc. All these courses are taught online by professors and are formulated in their own way. There are many courses you can audit and if you want, pay a general fee to get recognised certificates for the same.

• Is it paid or unpaid?

Most of the courses offered on Coursera are free of cost if you would just like to Audit them. You can, however, get a certificate if you desire by paying a minimal fee online. There are also a few track courses which come at a cost and are worth mini degrees. There are also some master’s courses which are paid for.

• Who teaches the content?

The content on Coursera is taught by the faculty of the particular department in a particular University. Unlike Udemy, courses on Coursera can be taught by faculty in the university linked to the course.

Professors from Universities like Stanford, Harvard, UC San Diego etc teach these online lectures.

• What kind of students does it suit?

Given the flexibility of many of these courses, they can easily be studied by any student. The website, however, is not as widespread as Udemy. Although it offers courses in a variety of fields, the courses are still limited.

The plus point of Coursera is manyfold. You can complete a course and once you are done then decide to take the paid certificate. As the courses are taught by professionals in university or an institution, you do not need to look up reviews.

3.  EDx

• A little bit about EDx

EDx was started by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University as a non-profit organisation. Similar to Coursera, I have been using EDx since my freshman year at college. All the courses are taught by professors and are mostly free of cost.

EDx provides micro-masters programs, professional certificate courses, online masters degree etc.

• What kinds of courses does it offer?

EDx offers a variety of courses in architecture, chemical engineering, data science, computer science,  food, health, engineering etc. Taught by professors from accredited universities, you can either audit the course for free or pay a minimum fee to get a certificate after you complete the course.

• Is it paid or unpaid?

Most of the courses offered are free of cost. You need to pay only if you want a certificate at the end. However, some of the master’s programs and special programs are paid for. The courses are very well designed.

• Who teaches the content?

The subjects are taught by the faculty of universities the subject is linked to. They are all trained professionals, similar to Coursera

• What kind of students does it suit?

EDx can be used by any type of student. It has a wide variety of courses. MIT, Harvard, UC Berkely are all linked with EDx and offer certification courses. The variety of courses here is a little more than Coursera. However, I use both of these MOOCs in harmony.

4.  NPTEL

• A little bit about NPTEL

Most of you reading this might not be aware of this particular MOOC. NPTEL or the National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning is a collective initiative of the Indian Institute of Technology’s (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc).  NPTEL offers almost any course you can possibly think of in science, mathematics and engineering.

Funded by the Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, NPTEL is an initiative to bring the education of the IITs and IISc to the screen of any students computer. The subjects taught on this website are highly extensive and cover the syllabus of many of the engineering schools in India.

I have used NPTEL extensively. My knowledge and basis of propulsion have to be credited to the amazing lectures delivered by the professors of IIT Bombay. Unlike EDx and Coursera, NPTEL does not offer small MCQs etc in the middle of the lectures however, you can write an exam

• What kinds of courses does it offer?

NPTEL has courses in subjects ranging from almost all fields from aerospace engineering to textile engineering. This wide variety of courses are taught by the most renowned professors or India and possibly the world.

     

• Is it paid or unpaid?

These courses are offered free of cost and can be accessed by anyone around the globe. There are a few subjects for which you can get certification at a minimum price after you pass the final test of the subjects. Unfortunately, these tests are held in centres in India and are not online.

Nevertheless, the quality of education and content is what matters and is offered by the courses in NPTEL.

• Who teaches the content?

The courses are taught by professors of IITs and IISc Banglore. Unlike EDx and Coursera, NPTEL does not offer small MCQs etc in the middle of the lectures however, you can write an exam at the end of the course which is not available for international students.

• What kind of students does it suit?

The choice of course although extensive in the field of science and engineering is quite small. It is a MOOC that offers just STEM fields (not biology).

I must admit, some of the courses date ages back and although the quality of education is brilliant, the video quality can be quite bad.

5. Linkedin Learning

• A little bit about Linkedin Learning

Earlier known as Lynda.com, it was founded by Lynda Weinman in 1995. It was later acquired by Linkedin in 2015. In 2019 the upgradation of Lynda.com to Linkedin Learning was completed. The new platform has a better user interface and is  Just as the other online course sites, lynda.com has a variety of courses. It can be linked to your LinkedIn profile and gives a small certificate at the end of the course which you can put on your Linkedin wall.

If you have a Lynda.com account you can easily transfer it to Linkedin Learning. You just need to create a Linkedin account or connect it to your existing account.

• What kinds of courses does it offer?

Linkedin Learning offers more courses in marketing, coding, personal development, animation as compared to engineering courses. The design of the courses is unique. Just as the other online course sites it has separate courses but many of these courses are integrated together to form a learning path.

If you enter a learning path you need to complete various short courses to get a certificate which you can put on your Linkedin profile.

• Is it paid or unpaid?

The question to this is yes and no. Linkedin Learning is usually FREE for students whose colleges are associated with it. If you are a student from the states or Canada it is more likely that your college ID is linked to it. However, others have to pay for a membership for Linkedin Learning and it comes free with the premium Linkedin package.

• Who teaches the content?

Industry experts as claimed by Lunda.com teach on this online course site. The courses are well made and have short videos which can be finished easily.

• What kind of students does it suit?

Lynda.com is suited for all those who want to do better in their careers. It offers great in-depth courses for all those who would like to supplement their career in any field. It also provides extensive courses on those who would like to become developers or animators or want to enhance some of their skills.

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Put in a comment if you would like to know more about the courses these online course sites offer and my favourite ones!

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