Five free online courses of top universities
Classes and exams have come to a halt due to the ongoing crisis created by the outbreak of novel coronavirus worldwide. To keep students from falling behind, many countries have introduced online courses.
Many students in Bangladesh are faced with uncertainty, having no idea when they will be able to be admitted to college or university , or resume their classes. They can use this spare time to take up online courses offered by several top global education institutions. Given the diversity of global education, this is an opportunity they can avail amid this crisis.
Here are some courses and processes of enrollment
1. The art of writing and public speaking
Harvard University is offering above 90 free courses online. One can find the names here: online-learning.harvard.edu/catalog/FREE
The courses include programming, history, business studies, health and many more. We are talking here about the course titled- “Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking”. One can learn how to put one’s opinion and reasons in writing. The course gives a precise idea of critical thinking by analysing various famous speeches and writings. Harvard University’s English and Comparative Literature professor James Angle designed the course. A student only has to pay USD 99 if they want a certificate.
2. Learning Math
Many of us do not know if we solve a math problem easily our brain does not get any benefit whereas a comparatively difficult math boosts our brain’s capacity. A student gets to pick up such interesting information by joining Stanford University’s “Hard to Learn Math: For Students’ course. The course will help to know the impact of numbers in our daily life, how math is are connected to our brain function and so on. Mathematics professor of Stanford University, Jo Boaler, has designed the online free course. The students who have math anxieties can join the course.
3. Communication in virtual age
University of Toronto is offering this course “Communication Strategies for a Virtual Age”. Designed by Ivan Wanis Ruiz, the course is not a conventional one, rather similar to a TV programme. Beside the theories, Ivan Wanis Ruiz’s method of presenting the class enriches students’ skill of communication. A student can easily improve his communication by attending the quiz competition, watching all the videos and reading the notes. The syllabus is designed in the online platform Coursera.
4. Challenge the World Poverty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT Open Courseware offers varieties of online free programmes ranging from environment to transportation, from robotics to electronics, for the students.
We are talking about the course ‘The Challenge of World Poverty’ here. Nobel laureate couple Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo teaches this course. There are videos of 26 lectures in this course that give ideas of ending child labour around the world, why some countries have better economy and so on. Watching the Nobel laureates taking classes, having fun with students, asking them question will certainly be interesting.
5. Science of Well-being
This course is very essential at this time of pandemic. The course titled “The Science of Well-being” gives the precise idea of happiness . Laurie R. Santos, a psychology professor of Yale University describes about happiness in videos with subtitles. One can download the course app, too. One can receive a certificate upon completing the course. It can be used in professional networking platform LinkedIn. One can print the certificate for further use too.
*This piece, originally published in Prothom Alo feature ‘Swapno Niye’, has been rewritten in English by Farjana Liakat