Finding Free Courses
Google is your friend here. Looking for ‘free coding courses’ will give you tens of thousands of results, so get really specific. You can find a handful of great courses if you search exactly for what you want. Try any of the following queries.
- “Free Python Video Course”
- “Free Online Cybersecurity Course”
- “Free Coding Course with exercises”
That should yield a few results that seem interesting, but don’t dive head-first into this! Let’s see how you can narrow it down any more.
Who is the author?
Researching the course author can give you a good idea on how the course might be conducted. A college professor is going to teach independently from a silicon valley college dropout.
It depends on your style of learning of course, but try to figure out how the author teaches. That can be by looking at part of a course, or by reading some other articles of the same author.
Is it practical? Theoretical? In-depth or wide-ranged? See whether you can imagine spending some time listening to this person, and then go ahead.
Reviews & Testimonials
The power of word of mouth! Don’t take every review seriously – after all the difference between a bad and good experience are often the expectations as well, but when looking at reviews and testimonials, you can often read about common criticism and recommendations in there too!
Independent reviews are a great way to find out whether a course is for you, by finding common criticism, and seeing whether that is something you can live with.
Places to Find Great Courses
If you are still not sure about all the courses you have found, here are some great sites you should check out. They are some of the largest course providers out there, so there is something for everyone!