online courses

There are some fantastic websites that offer a variety of free courses, and you don’t need qualifications to start them. These could be combined with any of the opportunities detailed on this site. FutureLearn offer free high-quality online courses from some of the world’s leading universities and other outstanding cultural institutions. They have developed a set of short courses (3-8 weeks) to give school leavers a real sense of university-level study. Some courses help you prepare for university (e.g. writing applications) and others help you experience subjects outside of the national curriculum, e.g. Dentistry, Archaeology and Robotics.

The Open University, Coursera and EdX also provide free online courses. There is an option to purchase a certificate, but this isn’t compulsory.

They have hundreds of great courses from universities around the world!