The way data science is developing every second, it is becoming difficult to remain up-to-date with the everyday happenings in the field. It is imperative for professionals from the data science domain to maintain the pace and learn about the recent development. To do that, reading alone will not be of much help as on the professional front, every organisation looks for a certified degree along with the resume. Being a working professional, it is quite impossible to enrol into a full-time data science course. Thus, online courses remain the only option to fill the existing void. 

In this article, we would like to enlighten our readers with five free online data science courses provided by foreign institutions that will assist in boosting a career in data science. 

Harvard University

Harvard University is amongst the most reputable university names that one can come across, and it is not surprising that the university is at the forefront of providing free courses to ensure education is fetched by all. When it comes to data science, the university has kept in mind the present trends and curated courses as per the current requirement of students and professionals from around the world. At present, the university is offering 13 different courses in the field of data science such as Principles, Statistical and Computational Tools for Reproducible Science, Data Science: Interference and Modelling, Data Science: Productivity Tools and High-Dimensional Data Analysis to name a few.

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Stanford University

Stanford University is a name dreamt by many but joined only by few. However, in recent times online courses have helped many to learn from the best in the field of data science. The university offers a wide variety of courses related to data science, which are headed by faculty members such as Anand Rajaraman (founder of Kosmix), Daniel Templeton (Software engineer from Cloudera) etc. Amongst many, a few courses to be named are Computing for Data Science, Fundamentals of Data Science: Prediction, Interference, Casualty and Data Mining and Analysis.

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has laid down a number of courses related to data science in collaboration with edX, which are available for free. Two courses, in particular, have gained attention which is thoughtfully put together for people who have never had an interaction with computer science or programming language in the past. The two courses are Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python, and Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science, which teaches a variety of topics such as a notion of computation, testing and debugging, data structures etc. The program is headed by permanent faculty members of MIT with vast knowledge and experience in the field of data science.

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Microsoft

Microsoft offers a programme for those who are looking forward to learning the Ethics and Laws in data and analytics. The programme has been offered for free and can be accessed through edX with an amount of ₹7,081 for a verified certificate for Microsoft. The programme is being headed by Nathan Olsen, the Sr. Content Developer at Microsoft and Nathan Colaner, the Instructor of Management and Philosophy from Seattle University. The programmer will take a learner through the ways of applying ethical and legal frameworks along with practical approaches to data and analytics problems. 

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California Institute of Technology

Also known as Caltech, California Institute of Technology is often considered as one of the best institutes in the world with a long list of alumni as Nobel laureates. The course has been carefully curated for the beginners who aim to learn machine learning and is free of cost. The prerequisites require basic knowledge of calculus, probability and matrices with which the learner is good to go. The programmer is headed by Caltech Professor Yaser Abu- Mostafa who records lectures from a live broadcast along with question and answer sessions to make the learning interactive. There are a total of 18 lectures which are 60 minutes along with a discussion forum for participants and eight homework sets. 
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