Online Courses on edX for High Schoolers

Hello! I hope all of you are staying healthy and sane during this pandemic. Many of us now have a lot of extra time, and now is the perfect time to explore subjects and hobbies that we've never had the time to delve into. EdX, a free education platform, offers courses in subjects like Computer Science, Language, Business, and Humanities. Most of these courses are offered by top schools like Columbia and MIT or companies like Microsoft and IBM. For this post, I'll be focusing on a few courses and tips that may help high schoolers the most.

CS50x

The course I'm taking right now is CS50x, which is a class offered at Harvard and Yale. It's a really good introductory course, and you don't need any CS background to understand the course. What's special about this course is that it has unlimited access when auditing and graded assignments. The lectures are very interesting and easy to follow. They are recorded lectures from the Fall 2019 semester, so the questions that the students ask can help you understand the material better. The problem sets are satisfyingly challenging, and there are strong online resources to help you when you're stuck. They are also auto-graded, which is at least better than no grading at all. The focus of this course is mainly CS programming, though it also introduces students to python and SQL.

The professor, David J. Malan, also offers a variation of the course that can be used to prepare you for the AP Computer Science Principles exam.

Mandarin 

Along with a host of other languages including Sign Language and Spanish, Mandarin is offered on edX. There are only a few courses on Mandarin right now, but I recommend starting with the one offered by Tsinghua University (one of the world's top universities, equivalent in prestige to MIT). There are also leveled courses if you've had some experience with the language already. 

Python

Many people are interested in learning python because it is an extremely powerful and popular language. There are a plethora of courses on edX for python, and here are a few that are promising: 

• An introductory course, offered by Microsoft, smallest time commitment
• An introductory course, offered by Georgia Tech, middling time commitment
• An introductory course, offered by MIT, highest time commitment

Tips and Warnings

Each course has different policies, but here's what I've learned so far: 

• AUDIT the course. For high schoolers, it's not that important to have a professional certificate verifying that you took the course. The reason you're taking a course independently of school should be for your personal enrichment and intellectual interests. 
• Not all the courses have unlimited auditing access. Many of the courses have a limited auditing period that expires in about a month after starting the course. Of course, a month may be all you need. You can always unenroll and then re-enroll, though your progress may be lost. This is a particularly annoying catch to me, but there are a few gems that have unlimited auditing access. 
• Stay focused. It's easy to stop doing a course because no one is holding you accountable, but that's where your drive comes in. Try taking the course with a friend so that you can cheer each other on and help each other out when questions arise. 
• These courses will take commitment and potentially hours of work per week, so make sure you choose a course that truly interests you. It's perfectly okay to try a course for a while to make sure you like the professor and the assignment setup before you commit your attention and time. 
• If you think a teacher talks to fast or too slow, you can speed up or slow down the video to satisfy your individual needs.  
• The effort metric tells you the approximate time commitment you'll need per week to get the most out of the course material. 

Overall, I highly recommend edX, especially for those interested in learning Computer Science. I hope you'll look into edX, as it's an excellent resource for learning at home and even during the summer. There are a host of free education platforms out there, so if you don't edX, you'll still be able to find one that works for you. Time is the most precious commodity that a person has, so use this time to enrich yourself by learning!