Learning in lockdown The best free courses

Colleges, universities and adult education centres may be closed for the time being, but that doesn’t mean you can’t continue learning. A whole host of companies, colleges and universities are releasing free content to keep you busy during quarantine.

Literature

‘Understanding Shakespeare’ from Oxford University

‘Ancient Masterpieces of World Literature’ from Harvard University

Science

‘Bioethics’ from Oxford University

‘Adaptation to Climate Change’ from Cambridge University

‘COVID-19: Tackling the Novel Coronavirus’ from Future Learn

Arts

‘The Elements of Drawing’ from Oxford University

‘The Architectural Imagination’ from Harvard University

‘Digital Photography’ from Stanford University

Maths

‘Demographic Trends and Problems of the Modern World’ from Oxford University

Business

‘Building a Business’ from Oxford University

‘Sales Strategies: Mastering the Selling Process’ from University of Chicago

Philosophy

‘Marxism’ from Cambridge University

Computer Science

‘Learning Machines’ from Caltech

History

‘Global History Lab’ from Princeton University

‘Greek and Roman Mythology’ from University of Pennsylvania

Language

‘Duolingo’ splits language learning into small interactive challenges. You can choose your own path and unlock rewards. Plus, it’s free to use, with ads.

‘HelloTalk’ is a free way to learn a language by talking to native speakers around the world.

Explore free courses for yourself

‘Coursera’ provides free access to over 3,800 courses from the world’s leading universities and companies – try everything from Cryptography at Stanford University, to IT Automation at Google.

Got lots of time and don’t mind paying?

There are a lot of courses that you can pay for and potentially get qualifications from. Check out the websites below to see what you could learn next:

Udemy – Over 100,000 online video courses with new additions published every month.

Open University – Choose from over 200 qualifications and 400 modules.