edX, an educational non-profit founded by Harvard and MIT, has reportedly enrolled over 110 million learners in every country in the world, according to the company.
Some of the platform's most popular courses cover increasingly in-demand skillsets like computer science, while many other courses speak to personal interests. Anant Agarwal, edX's founder and CEO, told Insider that the pandemic caused the biggest relative interest increase in personal happiness and religion courses.
Currently, edX offers over 3,200 free online courses, and students can pay a fee anywhere from $25-$199 for a verified certificate to add to their resume or LinkedIn profiles. edX also has longer paid certificate programs such as MicroBachelors and MicroMasters, though all individual courses can still be audited for free.
You can find a demo version of an edX course here, with the popular self-paced courses typically taking anywhere from 6-14 weeks to complete. They include weekly modules with pre-recorded videos that you may watch on a schedule or at your own pace, as well as supplemental readings, quizzes, homework, and optional student discussion forums.
12 popular edX courses, based on enrollment:
CS50's Introduction to Computer Science
Ekaterina Bolovtsova/Pexels
Offered by: Harvard University
Enrollment: 2,730,757
Length: 12 weeks
In this introductory computer science course, students learn "how to think algorithmically and solve programming problems efficiently" using concepts like abstraction, algorithms, data structures, encapsulation, resource management, security, software engineering, and web development.
They also become familiar with programming languages such as C, Python, SQL, and JavaScript, plus CSS and HTML. By the end of the course, students develop and present a final programming project to their peers.
Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python
Matilda Wormwood/Pexels
Offered by: MIT
Enrollment: 1,304,002
Length: 9 weeks
This course is part one of an introduction to computational thinking, programming, and computer and data science.
Without any prior experience in computer science or programming, you should be able to exit both with an understanding of how to think computationally and write programs to tackle problems.
The class focuses on breadth rather than depth. You'll learn about Python, simple algorithms, testing, debugging, and data structures, as well as gain an informal introduction to algorithm complexity.
Offered by: The University of Queensland Australia
Enrollment: 1,186,478
Length: 8 weeks
This course prepares students for IELTS, the world's most popular English language test, used to test the proficiency of students applying for higher education in English-speaking countries.
Students have immediate access to over 80 hours of interactive practice materials in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. It was designed by English teaching professionals at The University of Queensland, and the verified enrollment feature includes extra study materials.
The TOEFL is one of the most trusted English-language tests in the world, and is used as an assessment by over 11,000 organizations, government agencies, and higher education institutions.
Covering the four sections of the test (Reading, Speaking, Writing, and Listening), this course helps students prepare for the types of questions they may get, as well get ready for the actual exam day so they can strive to achieve the best possible score.
Intended for students who completed the introductory CS50 course, this class focuses on database design, scalability, security, and user experience, using the popular programming languages Python and JavaScript. It features many hands-on projects to teach students how to use APIs, interactive UIs, GitHub, Heroku, and more, so that they can leave the course better equipped to design Internet applications.
If you've never learned Linux, this course, taught by Jerry Cooperstein, The Linux Foundation's Director of Training, is a good place to start.
Students gain a flexible knowledge of Linux using both the graphical interface and command line. They come away from the course comfortable with the tools and techniques most commonly used by Linux system administrators and end users in their day-to-day work.
Taught by Harvard Business School, this course explores the complicated and nuanced social issues that arise from emerging markets. Students cover different entrepreneurial sectors such as healthcare, online commerce, fintech, and infrastructure, as well as a range of geographical locations like India and South Asia, China, Africa, Latin America to help students solve problems related to financing, growth metrics, and property rights.
The first course in Harvard's Data Science professional certificate program, R Basics covers the fundamentals of the R programming language, covering functions, data types, popular commands like "if-else" and "for-loop", and data visualization. The course makes it a point to build a strong foundation in R rather than focusing on learning every feature right away — making it an approachable course for beginners.
Meant for students with no background in architecture (but plenty of curiosity), this course covers the achievements of architecture from both culturally expressive and technical viewpoints. Students learn about the common challenges architects face through a aesthetic, technical, economic and political lens.
For students who are interested in pursuing an architecture career, this course can offer continuing education units (CEUs) for American Institute of Architects (AIA). Enroll in the course to find out more.
This Harvard Law course covers everything you might have always wondered about regarding contracts, like what happens if someone breaks it or doesn't hold up to their end of the bargain. Starting from the fundamentals of what a contract is and what it's meant to do, the course also tackles how to best resolve one-sided promises and fraud, making it a great class to audit before signing anything huge.
For those interested in learning Spanish, this course taught by the Spanish polytechnic university Universitat Politècnica de Valencia covers the basics of conversational Spanish. Students learn the alphabet and numbers, as well as basic phrases to describe themselves, their nationalities, or their families. The course also covers some crucial conjugation rules, like using the verb "to be."
Based on one of Harvard's most popular on-campus courses, the online version examines common contemporary issues relating to justice — from income distribution to debates about rights — along with influential texts on morality and justice by Aristotle, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and John Rawls. Students learn to examine these controversial and complex issues through a critical, nuanced lens.
Mara Leighton is a former senior reporter at Business Insider. She began her career on the Business Insider Reviews team, specializing in women's fashion, skincare, footwear, and style trends. As she watched the world shift around her during Covid, she started reporting on how the educational landscape was shifting to online classes. She became a senior reporter for the Reviews' education and learning team, and later transitioned to a senior digital culture reporter role, where she further investigated how online culture shapes the world around us.
Julia is a senior health reporter on Business Insider's health team, with expertise in psychology, relationships, parenting, and skin health. Her popular stories include an exploration of a dangerous Gen Z hookup trend, the costs of raising kids without grandparents there to help, and how therapy-speak texts ruin friendships. She's also published interviews with famed sex therapist Esther Perel and climbers Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell. In 2023, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cited her story on the US sunscreen regulations in a TikTok advocating for looser FDA restrictions. Julia's work has also appeared on the New York Post, NPR's On Point, the podcast No Such Things, and the radio program The Jimmy Malone Show. Prior to that, Julia was an education and personal development editor on the BI Reviews team and a sex and relationships editor at Cosmopolitan and BuzzFeed, respectively.You can say hi to Julia at jpugachevsky@businessinsider.com or shoot her a DM on Twitter or Instagram (she is @jaypugz on both, but email really is the best way to reach her!)
Read next
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
