20 Free Business MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) That Will Advance Your Career

Art, phi­los­o­phy, lit­er­a­ture and history–that’s main­ly what we dis­cuss around here. We’re about enrich­ing the mind. But we’re not opposed to help­ing you enrich your­self in a more lit­er­al way too.

Recent­ly, Busi­ness Insid­er Italy asked us to review our longer list of 1600 MOOCs (Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es) and cre­ate a short list of 20 cours­es that can help you advance your career. And, with the help of Cours­era and edX, the two top MOOC providers, we whit­tled things down to the fol­low­ing list.

Above, you’ll find the intro­duc­to­ry video for Design Think­ing for Inno­va­tion, a course from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia. Oth­er cours­es come from such top insti­tu­tions as Yale, MIT, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan and Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty. Top­ics include every­thing from busi­ness fun­da­men­tals, to nego­ti­a­tion and deci­sion mak­ing, to cor­po­rate finance, strat­e­gy, mar­ket­ing and account­ing.

One tip to keep in mind. If you want to take a course for free, select the “Full Course, No Cer­tifi­cate” or “Audit” option when you enroll. If you would like an offi­cial cer­tifi­cate doc­u­ment­ing that you have suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed the course, you will need to pay a fee. Here’s the list:

• Busi­ness Foun­da­tions — Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia
• Influ­enc­ing Peo­ple — Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan
• Intro­duc­tion to Nego­ti­a­tion: A Strate­gic Play­book for Becom­ing a Prin­ci­pled and Per­sua­sive Nego­tia­tor — Yale Uni­ver­si­ty
• Sell­ing Ideas: How to Influ­ence Oth­ers, and Get Your Mes­sage to Catch On — Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania/Wharton Busi­ness School
• Effec­tive Prob­lem Solv­ing and Deci­sion Mak­ing — Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia-Irvine
• Design Think­ing for Inno­va­tion — Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia
• Project Man­age­ment: The Basics for Suc­cess — Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia-Irvine
• Work Smarter, Not Hard­er: Time Man­age­ment for Per­son­al & Pro­fes­sion­al Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty — Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia-Irvine
• Becom­ing an Entre­pre­neur — MIT
• Com­pet­i­tive Strat­e­gy — Lud­wig-Max­i­m­il­ians-Uni­ver­sität München (LMU)
• Finan­cial Mar­kets — Yale Uni­ver­si­ty (taught by Nobel Prize Win­ning Econ­o­mist Robert Shiller)
• Finance for Non-Finan­cial Pro­fes­sion­als — Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia-Irvine
• Intro­duc­tion to Cor­po­rate Finance — Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania/Wharton Busi­ness School
• Intro­duc­tion to Finan­cial Account­ing — Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania/Wharton Busi­ness School
• Intro­duc­tion to Mar­ket­ing — Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania/Wharton Busi­ness School
• Man­ag­ing the Val­ue of Cus­tomer Rela­tion­ships — Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania/Wharton Busi­ness School
• Mar­ket­ing in a Dig­i­tal World — Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Urbana-Cham­paign
• Ana­lyt­ics in Python — Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty
• Intro­duc­tion to User Expe­ri­ence — Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan
• Data Sci­ence Essen­tials — MIT & Microsoft

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