10 Awesome Skills to Learn for Free Online-Redux

1. Become an Excel expert

http://chandoo.org Chandoo is one of many gracious Excel experts who wants to share their knowledge with the world. Excel excellence is one of those skills that will improve your chances of getting a good job instantly, and it will continue to prove invaluable over the course of your career. What are you waiting for?

2. Learn how to code

http://www.codecademy.com OR https://www.edx.org/course/harvardx/harvardx-cs50x-introduction-computer-1022 There are a lot of places that offer free or cheap online coding tutorials, but I recommend Code Academy for their breadth and innovative program. If you want to try a more traditional route, Harvard offers its excellent Introduction to Computer Science course online for free.

3. Make a wonderful website

http://iwanttolearnruby.com OR http://railsforzombies.org OR http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org You could use a pre-existing template or blogging service, or you could learn Ruby on Rails and probably change your life forever. Here’s an extremely helpful long list of free Ruby learning tools that includes everything from Rails for Zombies to Learn Ruby The Hard Way. Go! Ruby! Some basic programming experience, like one of the courses above, might be helpful.

4. Make a mobile game

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/begin-programming-2014 If you’re not interested in coding anything other than fun game apps, you could try this course from the University of Reading. It promises to teach you how to build a game in Java, even if you don’t have programming experience!

5. Start reading faster

http://www.spreeder.com Spreeder is a free online program that will improve your reading skill and comprehension no matter how old you are. With enough practice, you could learn to double, triple, or even quadruple the speed at which you read passages currently, which is basically like adding years to your life.

6. Learn a language!

http://www.duolingo.com With Duolingo, you can learn Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, or English (from any of the above or more). There’s a mobile app and a website, and the extensive courses are completely free.

7. Pickle your own vegetables

http://www.skillshare.com/classes/food-and-drink/Brine-Time-Pickle-like-a-Pro/700467999 Tired of your farmer’s market haul going bad before you use it all? Or do you just love tangy pickled veggies? You too can pickle like a pro thanks to SkillShare and Travis Grillo.

8. Improve your public speaking

https://www.edx.org/course/uwashingtonx/uwashingtonx-comm220uwx-introduction-1234 You can take the University of Washington’s Intro to Public Speaking for free online. Once you learn a few tricks of the trade, you’ll be able to go into situations like being asked to present at a company meeting or giving a presentation in class without nearly as much fear and loathing.

9. Learn some statistics

https://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/statistics-2-001-fall-2009/id354822870?mt=10#ls=1 UC Berkeley put a stats intro class on iTunes. Once you know how to understand the numbers yourself, you’ll never read a biased “news” article the same way again — 100% of authors of this post agree!

10. Psych!

http://academicearth.org/courses/introduction-to-psychology/ Knowing the basics of psych will bring context to your understanding of yourself, the dynamics of your family and friendships, what’s really going on with your coworkers, and the woes and wonders of society in general. Yale University has its Intro to Psychology lectures online for free.