Online Courses I Took - and Recommend!

UPDATED Feb. 2023 – When friends ask me what online courses I've taken, I say, "You'd better sit down!"  Yes, it's a long list – and in 2020 it has experienced an above-average burst of growth : my goal was to have at least some good things to remember that evil Covid year by... such as an exciting new batch of online courses.

So, which of the courses I took would I recommend as good ones?  Virtually ALL OF THEM!  Think about it : why would I take, and complete, an online course that I don't think is good?  If I have a false start and don't like it, I don't finish it – and it won't be on this list!

The following are 27 courses (at various levels) I took in their entirety, and I recommend as good ones to take – provided, of course, that they fit your background and interest.

NOT included:  documentaries, short tutorials and the like.  Nor am I including courses I took in college or grad school, nor any classes I took in person, such as sailing, photography or foreign languages.  Also not included are textbooks that I've used as self-taught courses, such as the excellent A Course in Modern Mathematical Physics, by Peter Szekeres (2004), which I'll later review in this blog, or the great classic Kandel et al., Principles of Neural Science (6th edn, 2021).   Recently, very excited by An Introduction to Systems Biology; Design Principles of Biological Circuits, by Uri Alon (2nd edn, 2020)

For more information about online courses in general, as well as the organizations offering them, please see my other blog entry.  A wide variety of good online courses give me the proverbial feel of a kid in the candy store!

Check out the trailers, or the first few minutes, in some of the links below – and maybe something will catch your fancy, even just for fun and Love of Knowledge.  All the courses below are either free, or available with a very modest monthly fee.

 

BIOLOGY / CHEMISTRY:

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
Intro to Systems Biology	Coursera (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Systems Biology Center New York)	2013	Ravi Iyengar	https://www.coursera.org/learn/systems-biology	Systems biology done right!  Taught by an active researcher in the field. Recommended if you have at least some background in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and ideally also Calculus.  It tries to be all-encompassing; so, most topics are not explored in great depth, and the course can come across as "dense." Quizzes are included, even in the free Coursera option. This course contributed to inspire, and help, the launch of my open-source project Life123
Understanding the Brain	The Great Courses	2007	Jeanette Norden	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/understanding-the-brain	A little dated. Its strength is anatomy and systems. Not as much on the sub-neuronal level
Introduction to Solid State Chemistry	MIT	2010	Donald Sadoway	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI7D2lkcF8E&list=SP36EC6A6180271B0F	Superb, very engaging professor. Excellent material coverage. Freshman Chem at an advanced level. Even though I had already taken at least 7 courses in Chemistry and Physical Chemistry in college and grad school – and I already knew most of the material in this course – I found myself watching it just because the professor is so charismatic and funny!  Chemistry is something I disliked in high school, but re-discovered in college (as one of my informal minors)

 

EARTH SCIENCES:

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
Oceanography: Exploring Earth's Final Wilderness	The Great Courses	2011	Harold J. Tobin	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/oceanography-exploring-earths-final-wilderness	Engaging professor and subject matter. Excellent in both breadth and (ahem) depth of materials.
The World's Greatest Geological Wonders	The Great Courses	2013	Michael E. Wysession	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/the-worlds-greatest-geological-wonders	Fascinating course by a very engaging professor! Only shortcoming is the annoying over-fast editing.

MATH:

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
An Introduction to Formal Logic	The Great Courses	2016	Steven Gimbel	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/show/an_introduction_to_formal_logic	About both Mathematical Logic and the Philosophy of Logic, by a very entertaining, immensely funny professor. I review it in this blog entry.

 

MATH / MUSIC:

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
How Music and Mathematics Relate	The Great Courses	2014	David Kung	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/how-music-and-mathematics-relate	Very engaging and personable professor. The earlier part of the course (about sounds, pitch, scales, etc.) is by far the most interesting one. The later part gets progressively more contrived and less interesting.

COMPUTER SCIENCE / PHYSICS:

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
The Science of Information: From Language to Black Holes	The Great Courses	2015	Benjamin Schumacher	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/the-science-of-information-from-language-to-black-holes	A fascinating course in Information Theory - taught by a physicist! The Computer Science part was largely familiar to me, but still interesting, and the Physics part was very intriguing - great insights into Entropy and subtle aspects of the Maxwell Demon, among other things. Hot new topics, such as the information on the surface of black holes and the holographic principle, were unfortunately only briefly covered. The #1 shortcoming is that when things were getting super-interesting, in the "It from Bit" lecture, the course quickly wrapped up and ended :(( I was hoping for more about Quantum Computers, especially from the point of view of the Foundations of Physics

PHYSICS / ASTRONOMY / COSMOLOGY:

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
Introduction to Astronomy	Coursera (Duke U.)	Appr. 2014	Ronen Plesser	Class was deleted from Coursera :(	I complained with Coursera about the disappeared course, and got zero help; I elaborate in this blog entry why I have mixed feelings about Coursera. Excellent course with a large breath, by a very engaging professor. The part on Special Relativity was especially superb. I tried to contact the professor to get a copy of the course, but didn't hear back... As of Jan. 2021, there's no trace of it on Coursera nor on the Duke U. website.  Several Internet searches all failed. It seems it was re-offered in 2017, but the link to the course doesn't work
Dark Matter, Dark Energy: The Dark Side of the Universe	The Great Courses	2007	Sean Carroll	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/dark-matter-dark-energy-the-dark-side-of-the-universe	Very engaging course by a charismatic Cal Tech professor - but the materials are a little dated.
The Early Universe	MIT	2013	Alan Guth	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANCN7vr9FVk	The Ultimate Science Hubris: trying to understand the Whole Universe!  Excellent advanced undergraduate course, taught by a, ahem, star of the field, Alan Guth. The professor at times plods along a little slowly, and could be a little more rigorous with the math, but in most respects it's an excellent professor at the helm of a fascinating course.
The Great Questions of Philosophy and Physics	The Great Courses	2020	Steven Gimbel	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/the-great-questions-of-philosophy-and-physics	Very engaging, funny, professor. Deep and insightful on the philosophy of physics. It would have been nice if he had talked more about "Weak measurements" in quantum mechanics.
The Higgs Boson and Beyond	The Great Courses	2015	Sean Carroll	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/the-higgs-boson-and-beyond	Sean Carroll is always wonderful! The accompanying booklet was very helpful after watching the course
Impossible: Physics Beyond the Edge	The Great Courses	2010	Benjamin Schumacher	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/show/impossible_physics_beyond_the_edge	Engaging professor. Gets especially interesting in the later part. Quantum physics, relativity and thermodynamics are featured prominently.
Laser Fundamentals	MIT	2012	Shaoul Ezekiel	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saVE7pMhaxk&list=SP6F914D0CF944737A	The video quality isn't so great (especially for the lab demos), but this short course is informative and well-presented.
Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time	The Great Courses	2012	Sean Carroll	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/mysteries-of-modern-physics-time	What is Time? And why does it seem to "flow" in just one direction ("arrow of time")? I wrote a detailed review about it elsewhere in a separate blog entry
Radio Astronomy: Observing the Invisible Universe	The Great Courses	2017	Felix J. Lockman	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/radio-astronomy-observing-the-invisible-universe	Quite engaging. Good amount of detail. Interesting personal stories.

OTHER SCIENCES / ENGINEERING:

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
Anthropology and the Study of Humanity	The Great Courses	2017	Scott M. Lacy	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/anthropology-and-the-study-of-humanity	I review it in this post
Intro to Psychology 9.00SC	MIT	2011	John Gabrieli	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fbrl6WoIyo&list=SP44ABC9278E2EE706	Very PERSONABLE, funny, engaging professor! Excellent course that covers a wide range of materials. General Psychology was a subject I never got to study in college or grad school, though I had a good amount of background in Neurobiology…  and I’ve known and loved my more-than-fair share of mentally ill people! Course materials: http://ocw.mit.edu/9-00SCS11 The "Monkey Business Illusion": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY
The Science of Happiness	UC Berkeley / edX	2020-2021	Dacher Keltner and Emiliana Simon-Thomas	https://learning.edx.org/course/course-v1:BerkeleyX+GG101x+2T2020/home	Quite worthwhile! Something for everyone: to different people, different parts may come across as obvious, while other parts will be insightful and thought-provoking. I applaud the effort at backing up claims with scientific experiments (within the usual, typical limitations of social-psychology experiments.) The instructors are very personable and warm. Leisurely-paced course compared to most other ones on this list!
The Science of Flight	The Great Courses	2017	James W. Gregory	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/the-science-of-flight	Engaging professor, though the "handwaving" behind the engineering equations is a tad tiresome. It inspired me to pursue the ground-school portion of a pilot school!

ECONOMICS / FINANCE:

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
The Art of Investing: Lessons from History's Greatest Traders	The Great Courses	2016	John M. Longo	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/the-art-of-investing-lessons-from-historys-greatest-traders	Good amount of detail. Dynamic, personable professor who explains all concepts clearly, and also manages to bring out the human element of the pioneers of the various financial strategies. Quite interesting, both for intellectual curiosity, as well as as for financial literacy - especially for anyone considering investing.

HISTORY OF UNIVERSE AND HUMANITY:

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity	The Great Courses	2008	David Christian	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/big-history-the-big-bang-life-on-earth-and-the-rise-of-humanity	Awesome professor. Very thoughtful, broad perspective - with its sight set on "the rise of complexity". Excellent coverage of the transition between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic.

HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY:

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
Understanding Greek and Roman Technology	The Great Courses	2013	Stephen Ressler	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/understanding-greek-and-roman-technology/	Phenomenal course by a very engaging, extremely well-prepared professor. He also goes through great lengths to make scale models and computer simulations. It drives the point that "technology race", far from being just a modern phenomenon, was an important part of the ancient world - albeit at a slower pace. It's also fascinating to discover why some architectural structures (such as Greek temples) had their distinctive looks: it's not just because of varying aesthetic sensibilities, but also because of the engineering reality of the construction techniques available to them!
Understanding the Inventions That Changed the World	The Great Courses	2013	W. Bernard Carlson	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/understanding-the-inventions-that-changed-the-world	The human element and the socio/political/historical/cultural context of inventions throughout history

HISTORY (general):

Name	Source	Year Issued	Professor	URL	Notes
1900 - present: The recent past	Khan Academy			https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/history/euro-hist	Informative and well-presented history course, especially the part about WW I. I hated history in grade school, but re-discovered it on my own in recent years.  (WW II “steals the show” because of its magnitude and proximity in time, but it can’t really be understood without grasping WW I.)
The Celtic World	The Great Courses	2018	Jennifer Paxton	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/the-celtic-world	About to complete.  All the many bits and pieces I've heard about the Celts all my life are finally coming together...  In particular, the connection between continental-Europe Celts and those in the British isles.
No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life	The Great Courses	2000	Robert Solomon	https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/no-excuses-existentialism-and-the-meaning-of-life	In my opinion, the course gets better in the later part; the best part, by far, are the lectures about Nietzsche. I found the early part could be tedious and confusing; in particular, the Camus part at the beginning is very drawn out, with no clear purpose as to why.
The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World	The Great Courses	2012	Robert Garland	https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/the-other-side-of-history-daily-life-in-the-ancient-world	Very engaging course by a charismatic professor. That’s how history OUGHT to be taught, instead of endless sequences of kings and battles!  Very engaging course by a charismatic professor. History “done right” – about People, Ideas, Society, Lifestyle… Main focus is ancient societies.
Writing and Civilization	The Great Courses	2013	Marc Zender (Tulane University)	https://www.wondrium.com/writing-and-civilization-from-ancient-worlds-to-modernity	Fascinating! Excellent way to go beyond bits and pieces and misconceptions - and starting to understand the Big Picture In-progress: I'll say more later