You Can Take Over 130 Free Classes at Harvard

Widener Library at Harvard University. (Photo: Caroline Culler via Wikimedia Commons, CC 4.0)

Harvard is one of the most competitive universities in the United States, boasting an elite reputation and coveted academics that are admired around the world. Even so, there’s something not many know about this prestigious school: they offer more than 130 courses all for free.

Available through the online learning platform edX, these classes span everything from political science, human anatomy, and calculus, to public health, musical history, and chemistry. Harvard’s free program also encompasses the humanities, as well as deep dives into a range of religions, including Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Christianity. Other courses focus instead on managing anxiety and mental health, the remote work revolution, civic engagement, food fermentation, and exercising leadership, emphasizing the program’s broad scope and its practical applications beyond academia.

Harvard even offers its renowned CS50: Introduction to Computer Science for free, which was also adapted by Yale for over a decade through an academic partnership. The course serves as a sweeping overview of computer science’s “intellectual enterprises and the art of programming,” covering several languages like Python, Java, CSS, and HTML. Providing a rigorous and foundational framework, CS50 prepares its students for other courses such as Machine Learning and AI and Introduction to Data Science, among others.

For those more curious about the arts, there are plenty of opportunities to explore topics in literature, architecture, and global cultures. Modern Masterpieces of World Literature, for instance, examines how literary traditions have evolved across a variety of contexts, highlighting authors like Jorge Luis Borges, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lu Xun. The Architectural Imagination, on the other hand, considers the material and aesthetic principles of architecture, while also teaching the basic techniques behind producing your own architectural drawings and models.

Most classes are self-paced and require anywhere from three to eight hours a week. The only catch, however, is that these courses don’t include a free certificate of completion, although they can be purchased for a few hundred dollars for select programs.

To explore the full catalog, visit Harvard’s website.