The 10 Most Popular Online Courses of 2018, According to Coursera

Books were always a stay-home learning option, but thanks to an incredible array of online courses you can now get instruction and guidance from some of the smartest minds in the country from the comfort of your own couch.

But which one of the thousands of options out there should you choose to help you get a little bit smarter in 2019? Why not go with a proven winner and try one of the most popular courses on top site Coursera.

1. Machine Learning: Join students worldwide in learning one of the hottest tech skills around from some of Stanford’s brightest minds. “Machine learning has given us self-driving cars, practical speech recognition, effective web search, and a vastly improved understanding of the human genome,” explains Coursera. Master the subject and it will certainly get you a high-paying, in-demand job.  

2. Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects: Whatever you want learn this year, this course offered by McMaster University, University of California San Diego will help you master that subject faster and more efficiently. 

3. The Science of Well-Being: What’s the point of being smart if you’re still unhappy at the end of the day? This wildly popular Yale course will help you under the science of well-being both for intellectual interest and practical application.

4. Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: The price of bitcoin may be way down but interest in the subject of the underlying technology is still sky high, if participation in this Princeton course is anything to go by.

5. Algorithms, Part I: Another tech course from Princeton. This one promises to teach “the essential information that every serious programmer needs to know about algorithms and data structures, with emphasis on applications and scientific performance analysis of Java implementations.”

6. English for Career Development: A little shaky in your grasp of professional English? You’re not alone. This class from the University of Pennsylvania designed for non-native speakers of English attracted a ton of students in 2018. 

7. Financial Markets: What’s going on when the markets go up and down, what is the social function underlying all the craziness on CNBC, and what does that have to do with your career? This Yale class promises answers.

8. Introduction to Psychology. For those curious about the human mind, this University of Toronto course highlights “the most interesting experiments within the field of psychology, discussing the implications of those studies for our understanding of the human mind and human behavior.”

9. Cómo hacer una tesis. My Spanish is non-existent so I’ll just quote the course description of this one from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México: “El participante en proceso de titulación o que están finalizando estudios universitarios, será capaz de elaborar una tesis en seis meses; por medio de las herramientas adquiridas en cada módulo, a fin de que las conjuguen con los conocimientos, habilidades y aptitudes con que cuentan e impulsando sus capacidades de investigación.”

10. Chinese for Beginners. Learning a second language is great for your career and your mind, so why not give Chinese a try with this introductory course from Peking University?

What new skill or subject are you learning in 2019?