With so many things on our plate, It’s hard to choose between all the things we are interested in and which ones to pursue.
What if you could try out most of them?
If you are interested in more than one thing and sometimes torn between interests, you will discover a list of free resources where you can learn anything for free, well almost anything.
I am writing this to my little sister, she’s finishing up school and I wish I had some of these resources at hand when I was her age.
Luckily this is relevant to everyone who wants to learn something new, as they say, we are never to old to learn new tricks.
It starts with this video that resonated with me.
Emilie Wapnick presents this Ted Talk titled “Why some of us don’t have a true calling”.
She starts off with asking the question we all received when we were young. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. As innocent as the question might be she makes the point that it might be limiting to our potential.
The question only makes room for one answer. As a kid you want to be many things, one day it’s Superman the other a policeman.
The question limits the kids potential not allowing for them being all that they can be!
Could that have had an influence on how you grew up?
I think that question is not the only example. Our whole society is built on rules and ways that do not allow for every unique individual and that limits our potential.
We all have unique DNA; everyone is different. Then why is the systems not designed to cater for such diversity. One good example would be schools. A classroom today is not much different to one from the 19th century.
Is it not time for change?
The top take always from this talk would be:
Question popular and shared belief society has for us. Ask better questions and look for better and smarter ways to do what you want to do!
Do what works for you, as Emilie mentions maybe you are born to be a specialist who has that drive to pour all your effort into one activity.
But if not, see what works, experiment and try things out untill you get it to work for you. Failure is your friend, tackle it with a growth mindset. Play by your own rules.
Learn more about Emily at her blog Puttylike. You can also check out her new book “How to Be Everything: A Guide for Those Who (Still) Don’t Know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up”
Learn anything for free
So you have many interests and don’t know what to do next?
Exploring what you like is a good place to start. See what you like, test things out and in the end, you will find something you love to do.
Sometimes that thing will be at an intersection between two existing ideas. Where the two ideas collide and overlap will leave you with innovation and brand new ideas.
To stimulate your avenues of interest why not take a course on the subject? You will quickly learn if it is something you would like to pursue.
Below is a list of online courses where you can learn anything for free.
Take online courses from the world’s best universities. EdX offers free online courses and classes. Find the latest MOOC from the world’s best universities including MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, UT and others.
Take the world’s best courses, online, for free. 2000+ courses from schools like Stanford and Yale – no application required. Build career skills in data science, computer science, business, and more.
- Coursmos
Take a micro-course anytime you want, on any device. Coursmos is an online micro-learning platform. It offers approximately 50,000 lessons within approximately 11,000 courses with courses broken down into smaller lessons, typically no longer than three minutes each.
Get bite-sized daily courses to your inbox. Highbrow is a learning platform that delivers bite-sized courses straight to people’s inboxes every morning, that helps them form a daily micro-learning.
Online classes and projects that unlock your creativity. Skillshare is a learning platform with online classes taught by the world’s best practitioners.
Grow your skills with online video lessons. Grow your CQ (Curious Quotient) with a brand new CQ Workout every day. Learn from 25,000 lessons on virtually any topic.
Learn technology, creative and business skills. Learn software, creative, and business skills to achieve your personal and professional goals. Join today to get access to thousands of courses.
Take free creative classes from the world’s top experts. CreativeLive empowers over ten million students worldwide to live their dreams in career, hobby, and life.
Learn real world skills online. Udemy is the world’s largest destination for online courses. Discover an online course on Udemy.com and start learning a new skill today.
Join 6383823 people learning together at FutureLearn. Enjoy free online courses from top universities and specialist organisations. Start learning now.
Kadenze brings together educators, artists, and engineers from leading universities to provide world-class education in the fields of art and creative technology.
Canvas Network provides all the ease and functionality of Canvas, the learning management system that makes teaching and learning easier for more than 18 million higher ed, K-12, and workforce users worldwide. Instructure built Canvas with open, adaptable, reliable, native cloud technologies that empower learning in every context.
- Lagunita
Lagunita is Stanford’s instance of the open-source software release of the Open edX platform, which was developed by the joint Harvard/MIT non-profit organization, and which Stanford engineers have been collaborating on since April 2013.
Lagunita hosts many of the free, online courses that are taught by Stanford faculty and made available to lifelong learners around the world for self-enrichment. Lagunita also hosts a variety of professional education opportunities in conjunction with many of Stanford University’s schools and departments.
Learn how to code
Learn to code interactively, for free. Codecademy is an online interactive platform that offers free coding classes in 12 different programming languages including Python, Java, PHP, JavaScript, Ruby, SQL, and Sass, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS.
Learn how to code from scratch. Codeplace teaches you Ruby on Rails by helping you build real world applications.
Earn a Nanodegree recognized by industry leaders. Udacity, a pioneer in online education, is building “University by Silicon Valley”, a new type of online university that teaches actual programming.
Live streaming classes on design, marketing and code. Learn from zero to create the future of the web. Courses on programming, design, marketing, web development, Frontend, Backend, mobile dev, UX, usability.
Learn to code by doing. Learn to code in the comfort of your browser with video tutorials, programming challenges, and screencasts.
- Thinkful
Get 1-on-1 help from experienced developers on your path to your first development job.
Start learning today with easy tutorials. Code.org is a non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science education by making it available in more schools.
Master Ruby on Rails and other web technologies. Learn Ruby on Rails and other web technologies through project-based … Learn Ruby on Rails by building an online marketplace like Etsy from scratch.
Learn HTML, CSS, iPhone apps & more. Learn web design, coding and much more with Treehouse. You can learn … Choose from 1,000s of hours of content, from JavaScript to Python to iOS.
Learn to make awesome websites. Dash is a fun and free online course from General Assembly that teaches you how to code awesome websites in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Learn to code and build web applications in one month.
Learn to work with big data
- DataCamp
Online R tutorials and data science courses. Learn Data Science from the comfort of your browser, at your own pace with DataCamp’s video tutorials & coding challenges on R, Python, Statistics & more. … what you want to learn? Take one of our dedicated courses in a range of topics.
Learn data science in your browser. Learn real-world data science skills in an interactive online environment.
- DataMonkey
Develop your analytical skills in a simple, yet fun way. You will learn in an authentic work environment right in your browser. All the material is explained in simple and accessible language. The best way to learn something new is to do it.
Learn new languages
Learn a language for free. Duolingo is the world’s most popular way to learn a language. It’s 100% free, fun and science-based. Practice online on duolingo.com or on the apps!
Learn a language in 200 hours. A simple, addictive and fast way of learning languages. Join the community today and try our world-leading scientific approach — courses online and in our app.
The free language learning community. Join the global language learning community, take language courses to practice reading, writing, listening and speaking and learn a new language.
Use flashcards to learn vocabulary. Memrise uses clever science to adapt to your personal learning style and performance.
Broaden your knowledge and horizons!
Find carefully curated educational videos.
Access an extensive library of interactive content. You can learn anything. Expert-created content and resources for every subject and level. Always free.
Search the largest collection of online guides. Guides are connected hubs for gathering, organizing, and sharing live documents that keep everyone up to date and on the same page.
- Chesscademy
Learn how to play chess online through videos, chess tactics, and chess games.
A new way to learn piano online, interactively. Pianu allows you to start playing piano, interactively online. Learn the basics of piano, and play right in your browser!
Your personal guitar tutor for the digital age. Unleash your inner musician. Beginner or expert – Yousician is the best way to enjoy playing. Start now.
If you enjoyed this article please share it with your friends.
Read more about the best Podcasts to further your curiosity as a lifelong learner!
