The best online courses to do while you power through lockdown

Instead of ODing on Netflix

Without the commute, the water cooler gossip, the lengthy lunch and the post drinks, you have a lot of extra minutes in your life. Rather than slouching in front of the TV, glassy-eyed to watch yet another Dabangg rerun, score big with the best online courses offered by some of the world’s leading universities — for free, or for a small fee.

A Life of Happiness and Fulfilment: One of the best online courses offered on Coursera judging by its popularity, ISB professor Dr. Rajagopal Raghunathan’s course takes a deep dive into what makes you happy. He draws from psychology, neuroscience, behavioural decision theory and more, giving a structural approach plus practical tips to a happy life.

You will write love letters to yourself and your parents, you will wrestle with unsightly bothers you’ve been ignoring for so long and you will learn to take life not so seriously.

And in difficult times like this, we know we have to mine for happiness within, rather than outside.

Viral Marketing and How to Craft Contagious Content: If you’re still scratching your head wondering how Dhinchak Pooja’s ‘Hoga na carona’ video has over 61 lakh views in less than a week, you need to take Wharton’s course on creating sticky content.

It’s going to help you understand why falsehoods like ‘human beings use only 10 per cent of their brain’ are tossed about like facts through SUCCESs “Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories.”

Graphic Design Specialization: The magic of Apple’s clean typeface or Pop Art by Andy Warhol, we’re surrounded by graphic design.

Offered by the California Institute of Arts, the four-themed course will help you build your foundational skills in image making, typography, composition, and working with colour and shape.

Make sure you have access to Adobe Creative Suite programs, such as Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign.

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies: The hottest asset in the globe today, cryptocurrency increased a whopping $14 billion because of a surge in bitcoins recently.

For those who’re confused about the bits and bytes of bitcoin, our pick of best online courses from Berkeley’s popular roster explains its mechanics, roots in the Cypherpunk movement and Libertarian ideals.

Once it’s down to pat, you can move on to the next course on blockchain technology.

How Writers Write Fiction: Storied Women: Fancy yourself as the next Jhumpa Lahiri? The famed University of Iowa, Writers’ Workshop tackles fiction writing by women authors and takes you on a captivating journey of prose.

You’ll go through innumerable readings Then build a character and write short, unusual stories with female protagonists in immersive worlds.

This might just be the lightbulb moment you’ve always wanted to share with the world.

Stanford Introduction to Food and Health: We know you’ve been bingeing on chips, but did you know processed foods are deliberately stripped of nutrients to give them texture and longer shelf lives?

The course will teach you healthy cooking techniques and sensible substitutes for unhealthy foods. It also deciphers those convoluted nutritional labels on packaged foods, and provides a step-by-step technique to change behaviour, one gluten free crêpe at a time.

Fashion and Sustainability: Understanding Luxury Fashion in a Changing World: This is conducted by the London College of Fashion and supported by luxury fashion conglomerate Kering, which owns Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga.

For those exploring options in the world of conscious luxury, it’s a ready primer to contextualise sustainability in the modern world, by bringing the best brains in LCS and Kering to talk to you.

You will debate the use of leather, grapple with dilemmas such as outsourcing printing to sweat shops, and create a balanced brand manifesto.

If nothing, it will definitely help you carefully consider your purchases the next time you feel like binge shopping on fast fashion.

Soft Skills: A professional development course offered by the Rochester Institute of Technology, it’s the sum of shorter courses and will give you a professional certification by the end of five months.

In an emoji-dominated world, you will learn to reinvent your company’s narrative by making videos, learn public speaking (what people fear the most) and work on case studies.

So, when you’re back in office, you can impress the socks off your boss, peers and clients, who’ve probably slouched down in front of Netflix during the lockdown.

Wine Tasting: Sensory Techniques for Wine Analysis: Imbibe the sensorial pleasure of vino by understanding the physiological process of wine tasting.

Why do your lips pucker up when you sip a tannic Cabernet Sauvignon? Should you gargle like a gargoyle with wine in your mouth?

Conducted by the University of California, you will cover different styles, flavours and aromas, faults in the wine (can there EVER be a faulty wine?), food and wine pairing, with a couple of suggestions on how to use what you’ve learnt at home.

Introduction to Sustainability: More than a buzzword with the world going belly up. It’s one of the best online courses dealing with sustainability where you’ll study the entire ecosystem: starting from the impact of our exploding population, unbridled use of energy, existing food systems, and learn how to measure sustainability with the right metrics.

The course also teaches solutions to our manmade problems through proper management, planning and engineering. The concern for the world begins with you now.