Summer Online Certification Courses for College Student?

[Anonymous]

My college freshman is home for summer with no job lined up. Trying to arrange volunteer work. He’s interested in taking some online classes for career certifications. Probably Poli Sci major. Thinking things like R Programming for Stats/Data Science or GIS or AI. Budget is preferably under $500. It looks like the Harvard free courses offer some certifications for under $300. Any other suggestions/experiences? LinkedIn? Other? Or other topic suggestions? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My college freshman is home for summer with no job lined up. Trying to arrange volunteer work. He’s interested in taking some online classes for career certifications. Probably Poli Sci major. Thinking things like R Programming for Stats/Data Science or GIS or AI. Budget is preferably under $500. It looks like the Harvard free courses offer some certifications for under $300. Any other suggestions/experiences? LinkedIn? Other? Or other topic suggestions? Thanks!

If you find anything for GIS, can you post?

[Anonymous]

Maybe develop some practical skills that can be helpful in future work environments? My rising college freshman also doesn't have a job yet. He is taking a 3 day excel intensive bootcamp. I think it's good for kids to know excel, office, pp, etc. Course is offered both in person or online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe develop some practical skills that can be helpful in future work environments? My rising college freshman also doesn't have a job yet. He is taking a 3 day excel intensive bootcamp. I think it's good for kids to know excel, office, pp, etc. Course is offered both in person or online.

Love the Excel idea. Do you have a link?

[Anonymous]

There are a lot of free courses from MIT.

[Anonymous]

Certifications are worthless, but you can donate to the provider if you are appreciative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Certifications are worthless, but you can donate to the provider if you are appreciative.

Is it just as valuable on a 19 year old’s resume to say coursework in GIS or R vs having a certification in one of those?

[Anonymous]

Anyone had luck with Coursera? Some are free but it seems like you might only get a free trial. Anyone know how much it costs for courses with certifications?

[Anonymous]

My kid got a First Aid cert, because he has a job as a camp mentor, and a Microsoft 360 certification, because we are an Apple house and he didn't want to look silly at any of his future workplaces, which presumably won't be on Macs. He looked into data science courses, but decided to just add those to his college courses instead. A lot of them on Coursera appeared to be very intro-level. The big-name schools offering certificates online seemed way too expensive, but perhaps we're not looking at the same courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid got a First Aid cert, because he has a job as a camp mentor, and a Microsoft 360 certification, because we are an Apple house and he didn't want to look silly at any of his future workplaces, which presumably won't be on Macs. He looked into data science courses, but decided to just add those to his college courses instead. A lot of them on Coursera appeared to be very intro-level. The big-name schools offering certificates online seemed way too expensive, but perhaps we're not looking at the same courses.

Where/through what entity did he do the 360 certification?

[Anonymous]

Not what you are looking for, I don’t think, and not to build a resume, but mine is looking at the auto courses at the community college. He doesn’t want to be a mechanic and doesn’t care about an official certification but thinks it will be useful knowledge in the future for his own car. And he finds cars interesting. He’s planning on taking those in the summers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not what you are looking for, I don’t think, and not to build a resume, but mine is looking at the auto courses at the community college. He doesn’t want to be a mechanic and doesn’t care about an official certification but thinks it will be useful knowledge in the future for his own car. And he finds cars interesting. He’s planning on taking those in the summers.

That’s great! What a great skill.