Harvard University provides multiple free courses in areas of art and design, business, computer science, data science, education and teaching, health and medicine, humanities, mathematics, programming, science, social sciences and theology. While most courses are self-paced course, some require one to complete them in a fixed time frame.
Students who earn a satisfactory score on some pre-determined problem sets including assignments and a final project become eligible for a certificate from Harvard University.
Here’s a list of Harvard University courses that are provided free of cost:
Super-Earth and Life
Super-Earths and Life is a course about alien life, how we search for it, and what this teaches us about our place in the universe. Super-Earths and Life is all about how these two fields together – astronomy and biology – can answer one of our most powerful and primal questions: are we alone in the universe?
Introduction to computer science
Students will be introduced to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming in this free course. This is a 11-week course.
Systematic approaches to policy design
This free online course from Harvard Kennedy School introduces approaches to analytical decision-making for policy design.
Big data solutions for social and economic disparities
In this online course, students will understand how big data can be used to measure mobility and solve social problems, examine the effects of family status on educational outcomes and long-term success and explore how highly engaged teachers can have an impact on student learning outcomes.
Managing happiness
Students enrolled in this free course will explore diverse definitions of happiness and understand its function in everyday life, learn how genetic, social, and economic influences impact your happiness, apply the science of the mind, body, and community to manage emotions and behaviors for greater happiness and recognise how success and achievement impact short versus long-term happiness.
Introduction to digital humanities
The free course seeks to develop skills in digital research and visualisation techniques across subjects and fields within the humanities. This course will show a student how to manage the many aspects of digital humanities research and scholarship. Whether one is a student or scholar, librarian or archivist, museum curator or public historian — or just plain curious — this course will help bring the area of study or interest to new life using digital tools.
Introduction to game development
This is a 12-week course. Candidates who enroll in this free hands-on course will learn about the development of 2D and 3D interactive games and explore the design of games such as Super Mario Bros., Pokémon, Angry Birds, and more.
The official website link – pll.harvard.edu has details of all the free courses, their course language, mode of instruction, time-commitment requirements and the difficulty level.