5 Free Courses to Take During Self-Isolation, with Certification

Self-directed learning

This is undoubtedly a difficult time for everyone; EI claims are smashing record highs, businesses have reduced hours, and many have temporarily closed altogether as we weather through COVID-19.

With so much negativity out there, let’s use this downtime to self-reflect, focus on personal growth, and maybe learn a new skill or explore a career path we were always curious about. From project management to programming, the eLearning world is exploding with new self-directed courses every week. Here are our top picks, with certification options upon completion, to let the world know you’re all about building your skill set.

Lean Six Sigma White Belt - MSI (Management & Strategy Institute)

Completion time: 1 hour + 30 minute test
"This program will cover exactly what Six Sigma is and why it is being used in businesses around the world to streamline operations and eliminate waste."

This course is an introduction to two continuous improvement methods: Lean and Six Sigma.

Lean, or lean production is a set of techniques focused on creating more value for customers, while using fewer resources. Six Sigma, on the other hand, focuses on improving quality, and reducing the probability of errors and defects in your process.

Lean Six Sigma while historically has been used in manufacturing, is now applied to businesses large and small, from healthcare to technology companies.

Advanced Google Analytics – Google

Sample template from Google Analytics

Completion time: 4-6 hours + 1 hour exam

Google Analytics is a free platform that enables you to assess the effectiveness of your marketing strategies and is the most widely used analytics software in the market. It can quickly measure web traffic, understand user segmentation, and track conversion and success indicators as it relates to your website. Whether you have a blog, or have an interest in marketing or e-commerce, this is a great course to pick up the basics.

While there is a course completion certificate, what you will really want is to apply your knowledge to take the free Google Analytics Individual Qualification (Google Analytics IQ or GAIQ) exam. The GAIQ exam is an industry recognized certification that can help you get the most out of digital analytics and give you an edge in your career.

Project Management Essentials - MSI

Completion time: 1 hour + 30 minute test
"Having our Free Project Management Certification on your resumé can show potential employers you have a general understanding of the importance of Project Management and the steps necessary to ensure a project is successful"

This course is designed to provide you with a basic understanding of Project Management principles. While the course is brief, it should give you the fundamentals you need to improve your understanding of the project stages of Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring, and Closing, so you can work better with your project team.

Learn to Program: The fundamentals - UofT

Completion time: 7 weeks, 4-8 hours a week
"Behind every mouse click and touch-screen tap, there is a computer program that makes things happen. This course introduces the fundamental building blocks of programming and teaches you how to write fun and useful programs using the Python language."

Python is a general purpose and high-level programming language, used in websites, web applications, data analysis, and automation. At Dealiem, we use Python in our web application to automate tasks, to inform us of when a website is updated, or when a restaurant changes their daily specials.

This introduction to programming will give you some baseline knowledge to research and build your own projects. While the course is free, the certificate will cost around $50 and may not be worth it for an introductory certification.

Databases and SQL for Data Science - IBM

Completion time: 2 weeks, 4-8 hours a week
"Much of the world's data resides in databases. SQL (or Structured Query Language) is a powerful language which is used for communicating with and extracting data from databases."

Though this is an introduction to relational databases, the course covers many concepts, from importing and querying data to creating a database instance in the cloud. The hands-on labs and datasets help to bridge concepts learned to real world problems. You can take the course for free, but access to graded material and to earn the IBM digital badge will cost you a subscription of $50 per month.

If you like this course, consider taking multiple related courses to gain IBM's specialization certification: IBM Data Science Professional Certificate.

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