The 5 Best Free Harvard Online Courses For Techies and Leaders in the Making

Isn’t it great to receive the finest education from a 3.2-percent-acceptance-rate Ivy League institution for free and available to everyone? We are indeed talking about the free Harvard online courses here. Yes, these courses from Harvard come with free (and some paid) certificates too!

Not all the online Harvard University courses come for free. But there are hundreds of them that you can audit and get a certificate of completion. Today, this blog will help you find the best free Harvard online courses, relevant to your domain. 

Harvard Online Courses Free: Overview of Subjects and Departments

In 2024, free online courses from Harvard are available in these areas.  

1. Computer Science and Programming - 21 
2. Business -13
3. Data Science and Maths - 35
4. Education and Teaching - 5
5. Health and Medicine - 18
6. Humanities - 53

Other domains include Art and Design, Social Sciences, Theology, and Science. 

At Harvard University, there are different departments. 

You have the courses designed by Harvard Business School faculty for business and management-related subjects. 

The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences covers the free computer science and programming courses. 

Most of the free Data Science and Health & Medicine courses online are from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 

How Are Harvard Online Courses Free?

Harvard University's free online courses are free to audit. With most technical courses, when you complete projects with 70% or above score, the certificate is provided for free.

A sample certificate offered solely from Harvard after successfully completing the free online course is below. 

 

For additionally getting your certified verified by edX, you need to pay. (Some courses also have no info regarding whether you have to do projects and a score is kept or not. In that case you have to get the paid certificate from edX). 

Some business courses are also offered by the university’s HBS Online platform, while others come from GetSmarter. 

To obtain the certificate for some of the courses, you must pay as per the course on the partner platform, edX. 

Top 5 Free Harvard Online Courses

Here are the best free Harvard online courses across computer science, AI, entrepreneurship, data science, and leadership. Choose the relevant one and move ahead in your career. 

1. CS50: Introduction to Computer Science

Offered by Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the course is for beginners with no previous knowledge of the subject. 

Almost all HarvardX CS50 courses are for beginners. They do not come with any entry requirements when they are not for intermediates. 

Also, for some of the intermediate CS50 courses, this course is a prerequisite.  

Course Topics

Abstraction	Algorithm	Data structures
Encapsulation	Resource management	Security
Software engineering	Web development

Languages Taught

C Programming	Python	SQL
JavaScript	CSS	HTML

Duration of the Course: 11 Weeks

Mode of Learning: Asynchronous, self-paced

How Do You Get the Certificate?

You will have to complete nine problem sets with a good score. To obtain the certificate, you have to submit the final project. 

Additional Notes:

1. This online course from Harvard is available until 31st December 2024. 
2. For discussions, use the communities' portal from the website. Or visit the Reddit thread r/cs50. Or DM one of the instructors, David J. Malan, with username, u/davidjmalan.

So, another way this free Harvard course could be really useful is when you are pursuing an online BCA course. It would be a solid addition to your resume. 

2. CS50's Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python

The course offers a fine grounding in neural networks and Python Libraries. 

What you can blindly expect is the quality of the education you get from the educators. One of the course's main requisites is having at least a year of experience with Python. Or any of the beginner-level CS50 courses would do. 

Some previous learners also suggest having familiarity with Data Structures and Algorithms. The course covers Stack, Node, etc.  

Note that this course is not about using ChatGPT or Python Libraries. It gives a solid background about how machine learning algorithms are built and how you can use them with Python. So, anyone new to AI, or wanting to learn how it works, should definitely go for it. 

Courses Topics

Some of the core topics in this course are in the table below. 

Adversarial search	Bayesian networks	Markov models
Probability theory	Logical inference

Duration of the Course: 7 weeks

Mode of Learning: Self-paced

How Do You Get the Certificate?

You have to complete multiple projects throughout this free CS50AI course from Harvard. These are algorithm, simulations, training AI, using Python data sets, etc.

According to multiple online sources and student reviews available, you will have to score like 70% for each project. After that, you can receive a Harvard certificate. 

For a verified certificate that adds edX, you would have to pay. Otherwise, it’s free. 

Additional Notes:

1. Join the Discord or Reddit forums for this course. 

3. Technology Entrepreneurship: Lab to Market

Technological disruptions are endless and often overlooked. That approach is specially not good news for small business owners and buddying entrepreneurs who are in the tech domain. 

This Harvard free online course is a fine addition to one’s entrepreneurial initial journey to success. The goal of this course overall is developing your critical thinking abilities as a techpreneur. 

There are plenty of readings available too.
Further, the course is offered by Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard and the University of California, San Diego. Making this online programme stand out, it is the practicality you learn to implement as a tech entrepreneur. 

Course Topics (Broadly)

• Using technology that exactly meets the needs of the customers, through real-scenarios 
• Selecting a go-to market strategy, and finding market positioning opportunities for securing investor funds or crowdfunding
• Learning which business model works with a suitable operating model

Duration of the Course: 5 Weeks

Mode of Learning: Self-paced

How Do You Get the Certificate?

The course comes as a free-to-audit one, straight from the edX platform. edX offers the verified certificate for a fee. 

Additional Notes:

1. This is a new Harvard online course that will end by 2nd October 2024
2. There is no information of the certificate available from Harvard, except the paid certificate from edX.

4. Data Science: Linear Regression

Data science is one of the top highest paying IT jobs in 2024. And this free course shouldbe in your arsenal. Maybe, even later, you can continue with the broader paid online specialisation with Professional Certificate in Data Science from Harvard.
Offered by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, this course is quite a refresher. 

Course Topics

• Linear regression basics - correlation coefficient, stratification, and the variance 
• Linear models - least squares estimates, multivariate regression, and R features
• Confounding - spurious correlation, outliers, reversing cause and effect, etc.

Duration of the Course: 8 weeks

Mode of Learning: Self-paced

How Do You Get the Certificate?

It is a free-to-audit free online Harvard course. The edX platform offers the certificate for which you have to pay.  

Additional Notes:

1. This course will end by June 2024. 

5. Leadership: Creating Public Value

If you aspire to become a leader, this is one of the best free online courses taught by Harvard’s Public Management professor, Mark Moore.

What you learn is to identify real-world problems instead of theoretical and eloquent bombardment, which most free and random courses on YouTube and other socials do.

Course Topics (Broadly)

• Get an integrated analytic framework to understand concrete problems or opportunities for collective action.
• Analyse case studies and understand practical applications of leadership principles and strategies.
• Learn about practical social responsibility.

Duration of the Course: 7 weeks

Mode of Learning: Self-paced

How Do You Get the Certificate?

You have to get the certificate from edX for a fee. 

Additional Notes:

• This course is available till September 2024

Take Free Harvard Online Courses Now

Whether you enthuse about AI, computer science, or leadership, choose from these free online courses from Harvard.

Before you go, more free online courses with certificates are available at Shiksha Online, which can help you at any point, irrespective of your career!