No longer just for university students, studying has been expanded online to gain insights and qualifications. It could be that you’re looking for a change in career, you need a qualification to gain a promotion, you just have an interest you’d like to know more about or looking after the baby isn’t tiring enough. Take a look at our selection of the top online resources to help you get there.
Khan Academy
Alongside their more kid-friendly counterparts, there is literature, humanities, and languages to allow you to re-introduce yourself to some forgotten skills or to study for something needed to gain a qualification.
MasterClass
MasterClass’s niche is courses curated from the proven very best of the best. A subscription-based platform showcasing names and faces everyone knows, MasterClass knows how to keep you engaged.
You’re not about to snore through fashion design as taught by Marc Jacobs, or song production from Alicia Keys, or the art of storytelling from Neil Gaiman.
MasterClass boasts such names as The West Wing creator and Social Network director Aaron Sorkin teaching screenwriting, The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood teaching creative writing, and Neil deGrasse Tyson teaching Scientific Thinking and Communication. MasterClass is the star-studded school of the future.
Even if you have no interest in, for example, space exploration, it’s hard to not want to know what viral Starman Chris Hadfield has to say about it.
If you’re looking to learn for the purposes of using your skills to grow your business, you should look first to LinkedIn.
More than a networking opportunity app, LinkedIn has a learning department and a certification program with partners like Adobe, Amazon, and Google. LinkedIn offers expertly produced courses on business, technology, and creative topics. Learn graphic design, how to make a content marketing strategy or an algorithm, or how to lead a team.
Skillshare
Skillshare is another educational service with a wide variety of courses for you to take. It requires a subscription to use. Its demographic is for those who need to learn those classes too niche for university. Did your parents never teach you to change a tyre? Or maybe you want to try something your parents wouldn’t know, like web development or digital animation? Build marketing or leadership skills. Or check what the photo & film category has to offer if you want to learn something about how to prepare a shoot on a budget.
Enjoy tutors who are at the peak of their powers, including notable figures like Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness teaches self-care classes, for instance. There is also a range of YouTubers such as Lilly Singh teaching classes on storytelling.
Access Skillshare ForTeams to enable your team to engage with any of the thousands of courses on the site, and this includes support and a team plan to track progress.
There are free-of-charge online classes for you to browse, as long as you have a £13-a-month subscription. However, some YouTubers are affiliated with the platform and thus have discount codes available for their audience.
The Open University
The Open University was created to encourage and allow for long-distance learning, offering undergraduate and postgraduate courses in almost anything you can think of. Gain a master’s degree from the comfort of your own home or take a module or two in something you’re interested in and gain credits or certificates while you’re at it.
Learn from courses in psychology, counseling, criminology, sports and fitness, design, and everything in between. You have the option to go at your own pace with full-time or part-time options for each course and you can build credits into certificates, diplomas, and degrees.
And the best news is, The Open University accommodates American credit transfers, so you can learn from across the pond if there is a course that grabs you.
Open courses
Universities and colleges often offer open courses that are available to learn from online. MIT, Harvard, and Yale are just some of the colleges providing online courses in a selection taken straight from the college syllabus.
Registration is not required so you can automatically access a range of audio, text transcripts, and video lessons on everything the colleges have.
No matter what your interest is – be it helping you cope with mental health issues, learn DIY skills, or earn a heady degree – you can find it on this list. Impressive and attentive tutors will help you on your journey, and you will be proud of your development – culminating with a certificate to prove your accomplishments.
YouTube
If everywhere else is coming up short, you can bet YouTube knows how to do it. And they’ll tell you for free.
