Elevate Your Career with Harvard's Free Online Courses
Reading Time: ~5 Mins | By: Jelly Academy
Imagine adding "Harvard alumni" to your LinkedIn profile tomorrow, without spending a single penny. Sounds too good to be true, right? But it's real. Harvard is offering six free online courses that cover essential business topics like leadership, business culture, and emotional intelligence. These courses are designed not just to enhance your skills but also to bring transformative changes to your personal and professional life.
Why Take These Courses?
In today's competitive job market, continuous learning is crucial. Whether you're just starting your career or looking to climb the corporate ladder, having credentials from a prestigious institution like Harvard can set you apart. The digital age has transformed the landscape of work and learning, making it essential to stay updated with the latest skills and knowledge. Employers value individuals who are proactive in updating their skills and knowledge. By taking these Harvard courses, you demonstrate a commitment to personal and professional development, a trait highly regarded in any industry. The best part? These courses are free and accessible to everyone, making high-quality education available right at your fingertips.
Life-Changing Topics
All six courses offered by Harvard are carefully curated to cover areas that are highly valued in the professional world. Let’s take a deep dive into what each course has to offer:
Negotiating a Salary
Overview: After this short Harvard Business School (HBS) Online lesson, you’ll walk away as a more effective negotiator with improved bargaining skills by looking at the real-world scenario of Derek Sanderson, former center for the Boston Bruins.
Why It Matters: Negotiation skills are vital for securing better pay and benefits, often leading to greater job satisfaction and financial security. According to New America, Millennials are receiving initial salaries about 20% lower than what older generations used to receive. Additionally, studies have shown that employees who are willing to negotiate their starting salary will see an average increase of 5-10% in earnings over time, while those who don’t negotiate only see a 1-2% increase. The difference between a 1% increase and a 5% increase can equate to hundreds of thousands over the duration of a career. At the end of the day, this difference will dictate how and when you retire.
Length: 15 minutes
Course Link: Enroll Here
Exercising Leadership: Foundation Principles
Overview: This introductory course explores strategies for leading in a changing world where adaptive pressures continue to challenge. Students are taught to mobilize people to tackle tough problems and build the capacity to thrive through the dangers of change. Different approaches to complex organizational systems will be introduced throughout the course.
Why It Matters: Strong leadership skills are essential for career advancement and effective team management. Leaders are at the top of the corporate hierarchy for a reason. As a strong leader, your role is to inspire people to do their best while also guiding them toward growth. This can be achieved by identifying areas where they can advance. Building on leadership skills will help position you for professional and financial success in the future.
Length: 4 weeks
Course Link: Enroll Here
How To Improve Business Through a Culture of Health
Overview: Named Runner-Up for the Best Online Program of 2018 by ProEd, this course offers students with the strategies, tactics and tools necessary to gain a competitive advantage by implementing a Culture of Health to proactively address issues and stay ahead.
Why It Matters: A positive business culture enhances employee morale and productivity, which is crucial for organizational success. For example, employees who work in a healthy and safe environment tend to spend less time away from work for health reasons. This decreases interruptions while increasing output and employee retention.
Duration: 9 weeks
Course Link: Enroll Here
Building Personal Resilience: Managing Anxiety and Mental Health
Overview: Stress, burnout, anxiety and sadness are all too common in the corporate workforce. This six-week course will help you build personal resilience to develop the ability to bounce back from setbacks and challenges. With a focus on proven psychology philosophies and science-driven skills to overcome challenges, students will walk away ready to tackle any challenging decision and stressful situation that may come their way.
Why It Matters: Resilience is key to personal growth and maintaining mental health in high-pressure environments. We will all face challenging decisions and experience stressful situations in our careers, how we handle these situations will determine our future. Mental health well-being is critical to maintaining and growing a career in the workforce.
Duration: 6 weeks
Course Link: Enroll Here
The Path To Happiness: What Chinese Philosophy Teaches Us about the Good Life
Overview: This course provides overviews of ancient Chinese philosophy to live a better life. Philosophical theories covered include Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi and Hn Feizi. This course brings voices from the past into modern contexts to explore the path to a good life in today’s day and age.
Why It Matters: While happiness and well-being are essential for a fulfilling life and successful career, navigating the stressors of the modern world can make it challenging to find joy. The phrase “one size doesn’t fit all” holds true for well-being practices as well. This course is designed to deepen your knowledge and enhance your understanding of diverse methods to foster well-being that may differ from the status quo.
Duration: 13 weeks
Course Link: Enroll Here
Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies
Overview: After six weeks, students will walk away from this course with an awareness of the opportunities for entrepreneurship in fast-growing emerging markets. They’ll also have an understanding of a conceptual framework for evaluating opportunities and an appreciation for the types of problems that lend themselves to entrepreneurial solutions.
Why It Matters: Understanding innovation and entrepreneurship can open new career paths and business opportunities. By fostering a mindset focused on creativity and problem-solving, aspiring entrepreneurs can develop unique solutions that address real-world challenges.
Duration: 6 weeks
Course Link: Enroll Here
The best part is, that these six courses are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what Harvard has to offer. Whether you want to grow and enhance your skills for free or are just interested in specific topics, the University of Harvard has a variety of courses available - 136 in total to be exact.
Don’t wait to elevate your career! Sign up for these free Harvard courses today and take the first step toward a brighter future by unlocking your potential and transforming your career path with just a few clicks!
