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You don’t need a 4.1 GPA or thousands of dollars to enroll in courses from some of the world’s best schools. Like Yale, Harvard, and Columbia, many universities offer massive open online courses (MOOCs) to improve access to high-quality education.
This includes Northwestern University, a top 25 school responsible for the renowned Kellogg School of Management and the Medill School of Journalism as well as alumni that include Meghan Markle, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Stephen Colbert.
Annual membership that grants access to 90% of Coursera offerings.
Below, you can find eight Northwestern classes you can take online for free. Some have the option to pay a small fee for certificates of completion that you can show potential employers or add to your LinkedIn or resume, and some are part of a multi-course Specialization that helps you deeply learn a topic or skill. They’re also all included in a Coursera Plus membership. You can browse all of Northwestern’s online courses here.
Length: 36 hours
Learn the fundamentals of processing images and videos — and how to solve practical, commercial, and scientific problems using them — in this electrical engineering course (which also happens to be the most popular electrical engineering course on Coursera).
This course is also included in Coursera Plus.
Length: 14 hours
High Performance Collaboration, taught by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, teaches effective leadership. Students analyze their leadership styles using self-assessments, create team charters in order to optimize group work, and develop a game plan for successful negotiation.
This course is part of the six-course Organizational Leadership Specialization and is included in Coursera Plus.
Length: 24 hours
This is the first of six courses in the Modern Robotics: Mechanics, Planning, and Control Specialization, where students learn the fundamentals of robot configuration — from configuration space (C-space) to holonomic and nonholonomic constraint to how to represent spatial velocities and forces as twists.
As Mechanical Engineering professor Kevin Lynch writes in the course description, the class is “not a sampler” — it’s meant for students hoping to either work in robotics or undertake advanced study.
This course is also included in Coursera Plus.
Length: 4 hours
This course teaches students how to weave impactful stories — be it via personal branding, crisis management, communicating an innovative vision, or more — and is taught by faculty from the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications as well as the Spiegel Research Center.
“Leadership Communication” is also part of the Organizational Leadership Specialization, and it’s included in Coursera Plus.
Length: 12 hours
This introductory course teaches students about the knowledge, skills, and discipline needed for an efficient and successful career in sales, helping students create achievable, short-term sales goals.
“Customer Segmentation and Prospecting” is part of the four-course Specialization in The Art of Sales: Mastering the Selling Process, and it’s included in Coursera Plus.
Length: 6 hours
Taught by three experts, this content strategy course shows you how to create the most efficient content in the information age. Students understand the core of what makes stories and information engaging, strategic, honest, and valuable to audiences.
“Content Strategy for Professionals: Engaging Audiences” is part of the five-course Content Strategy for Professionals Specialization, and it’s included in Coursera Plus.
Length: 6 hours
The Business of Social addresses a common corporate desire: how to attach a meaningful tracking system to social marketing. With this course, students learn how to use their organization’s social and mobile strategies to engage consumers 1-to-1 and measure social investments in cost, revenue, profit, and ROI. Legal considerations and management tactics are also covered.
This is one of the six courses in Northwestern’s Social Media Marketing Specialization, and it’s included in Coursera Plus.
Length: 14 hours
This Sports Marketing course covers the fundamentals: ticket pricing strategies, event promotion, sponsorship development, and social media promotion. Students also learn how crises occur and how various companies use sports to enhance and position their brands.
This course is also included with Coursera Plus.
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