If you’ve never heard of Coursera, it is a platform that delivers massive open online courses (MOOCs). This allows many thousands of people to participate in the same short course at the same time. Through a mixture of video lectures, texts and references, multiple-choice tests and peer-marked short essays, Coursera is able to manage a mind-boggling number of students that would be impossible in a bricks-and-mortar institution.
Most courses are free with the option of a paid certificate as proof of completion. A simple and effective way of gaining some new skills, or just to keep those brain cells active! Those courses classed as Specializations tend to be more advanced and require a monthly fee, but we shall ignore those!
Here are some free courses that caught my eye and are starting very soon.
Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, taught by Keith Devlin, created by Stanford University. This is a really good course on how to think mathematically; how the symbols relate to structures and ideas, and how to find meaning in the symbolic language. I’ve worked with Keith Devlin before and he is a very good speaker. I teach mathematics and far too many students complain that they really don’t understand what it means; this course will help you do just that!
Starts on 26th June and lasts for 10 weeks.
Game Theory, created by Stanford University, The University of British Columbia. This course will provide the basics of game theory: representing games and strategies, game trees, Bayesian games (modelling things like auctions), repeated and stochastic games, and more. Some knowledge of basic probability and calculus would be useful.
Starts on 19th June and lasts for 8 weeks
Cryptography I, taught by Dan Boneh, created by Stanford University. This introductory course covers basic theory such as pseudo-randomness, block ciphers, the importance of keys and ends with public-key encryption. A prerequisite for Cryptography II.
Starts 12th June and lasts for 7 weeks. You can join a few days late and still cover the whole course.
Buddhism and Modern Psychology, taught by Robert Wright, created by Princeton University. Buddhism claims to be entirely compatible with science. As neuroscientists attempt to understand the states of mind of meditators, will they validate such ideas or undermine their spiritual significance. And what is enlightenment anyway?
Starts 12th June and lasts for 6 weeks. You can join a few days late and still cover the whole course.
Introduction to Philosophy, created by the University of Edinburgh. I took this many months ago and is a good introductory course, taught by a variety of lecturers from the University of Edinburgh. It takes a broad sweep of epistemology (theory of knowledge), philosophy of mind and of science, moral philosophy and ends with some metaphysics.
Starts 26th June and lasts for 7 weeks. You can join a few days late and still cover the whole course.
That’s just a very small sample from hundreds of courses. Just check out the Coursera website.
Most courses that are successful run multiple times a year. If you have already taken any of the above courses then let everybody know how it was for you.
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