5 Online Learning Opportunities for Busy Professionals  

Every once in a while you think about them, those classes that the university guidance counselor recommended but you avoided just the same. You majored in computer science, after all, why would you need a marketing or a business communications class?

Now, as the owner of a growing IT company, you’re wishing you had a little more marketing background. Or perhaps, you would like to transition to a new career, but you find that your expertise in a particular area is coming up short.

Whether you want to keep your skills set fresh or you just want to see what’s out there that appeals to the woman you are today, online courses are a fantastic way to explore disciplines that you had no interest in as an 18-year-old college student or are just realizing would be useful at forty-something. There’s no commute to school after a long day at the office. You can attend lectures and do coursework in your pajamas, and best of all, many of these courses are FREE.

Here are five recommendations for online/computer based learning:

Open Culture calls itself, “The best free cultural and educational media on the web,” and it doesn’t disappoint. Open Culture is the gateway to knowledge you didn’t realize you wanted until you visited the site. It is a fun place to begin your online quest for knowledge.

Open culture is a clearinghouse for all things cultural and educational. You’ll find free movies, books, language lessons and free online courses. You can become an expert in Alfred Hitchcock movies by watching countless hours of his best work. If you desire to become culturally well-rounded, you could listen to some of the classical music in their collection or learn about art by viewing selections from the Guggenheim or the National Gallery.

Warning: Only visit Open Culture when you have at least an hour to kill because it’s more addictive than an open bag of chips.

Udemy is the place to let your imagination run wild. Udemy boasts over 32,000 online courses with 8 million students. You can learn HTML5 programming for free from the collection of free courses or take a Photography Masterclass for $297. The possibilities are nearly endless.

Udemy’s collection of personal development classes help students expand their personal lives, not just their careers. If you have a difficult time finishing your to-do list, take a course in Time Management and Productivity. Attend Positivity Camp to increase your optimism. Learn how to use Neuroscience to master your brain to lower stress levels and boost self-confidence.

Coursera’s educational platform unites a worldwide partnership of universities and organization to offer online courses open to anyone. As with other learning opportunities, Coursera offers students the ability to learn at their own pace, and at the most convenient times. They differ from other online learning in their approach.

Coursera promotes mastery of a subject before moving on to the next level. They offer immediate feedback on how well a student understood the material, and then provide additional learning tools until the student masters the material. Coursera includes peer assessments as part of the curriculum so that students receive valuable feedback from their peers—much like the feedback you and your colleagues offer each other every day. Try an Introduction to American Law from the University of Pennsylvania, Methods and Statistics in Social Science from University of Amsterdam, or Buddhism and Modern Psychology with Princeton University.

ALISON, based in Galway, Ireland, offers worldwide, standards-based and certified courses designed to help employees keep pace in an ever-changing workplace by refreshing their skills and taking control of their own destiny. If you want, or need, to prove that you have mastered the information in a particular course, ALISON, “provides an innovative test system where an employer or college can challenge an ALISON graduate at any time to take a simple online test on the course they have studied and/or the knowledge or skill level the holder professes to hold.”

ALISON diploma courses include: digital literacy and IT skills, financial and economic literacy, and health & safety compliance. Find the courses available on your continent here.

Saylor Academy is an online, nonprofit academy of open learning in which students can work at their own pace. Saylor is not accredited, therefore, students don’t earn degrees; however, Saylor does offer certifications in some areas. Saylor offers courses in a broad range of subjects from basic business classes to an introduction to molecular biology.

There’s an all you can eat buffet of online education awaiting, and all you need to partake is a computer and internet access. There’s no application fee. No schedule set in stone. No excuses. These online forums might not answer the question of what you want to be when you grow up, but you’re certain to learn a lot about yourself along the way. If a few courses can improve your career outlook or change how you interact with your staff, so much the better.