Harvard is notoriously hard to get to. This Ivy League admitted only 3.19% of applicants to its class of 2026 – the lowest admission rate in its history! Although not everyone is lucky enough to attend Harvard, yet you can get free Harvard certifications from the comfort of your home.

Their online course catalog includes a variety of subject areas, such as Art & Design, Business, Computer Science, Data Science, Education & Teaching, Health & Medicine, Humanities , mathematics, programming, science and social studies.

So whether you’re looking to put your free time to good use or looking to supplement your classroom learning with online courses, here are five free Harvard certification courses worth investigating:

Free Harvard Certifications to Explore

Game development

Are you interested in programming? from Harvard Introducing the CS50 to Game Development is a 12-week hands-on course that will allow you to learn about 2D and 3D interactive game development.

This will be done by exploring the design of popular childhood games such as Super Mario Bros., Pokemon, Angry Birds, etc.

You will also learn languages ​​like Lua and C#. By the end of the course, you will have programmed many of your own games and gained a thorough understanding of the basics of game design and development.

Computing

CS50: Introduction to Computing is Harvard’s introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computing and the art of programming. No programming experience is necessary for this 11-week course.

CS50x teaches students how to think algorithmically and solve problems effectively. Topics include abstraction, algorithms, data structures, encapsulation, resource management, security, software engineering, and web development. Languages ​​include C, Python, SQL, and JavaScript, as well as CSS and HTML.

Artificial intelligence

from Harvard CS50’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python explores the concepts and algorithms behind modern AI, delving into the ideas that give rise to technologies such as game engines, handwriting recognition and machine translation.

There are hands-on projects to familiarize yourself with the theory of graph search algorithms, classification, optimization, reinforcement learning, and other AI and machine learning topics when you integrate them to your own Python programs.

By the end of the course, you will have experience with libraries for machine learning as well as knowledge of AI principles that will enable you to design your own intelligent systems.

Programming

As the name suggests, Introduction of CS50 to programming with Scratch is an introduction to programming with Scratch. It is a visual programming language through which budding programmers can write code by dragging and dropping graphic blocks (which look like puzzle pieces) instead of typing text.

Using Scratch, this course introduces students to the basics of programming, found not only in Scratch itself, but also in traditional text-based languages ​​such as Java and Python. This Harvard certification takes three weeks.

Calculation

If you are not looking to learn the basics of calculus but want to learn applications of calculus to other fields, then Calculation applied! could be the course for you. This 10-week course is for anyone who has taken or is currently taking a course in univariate calculus (differential and integral), at the high school (AP or IB) or college/university level.

You will need to know the basics of derivatives, integrals, and differential equations, as well as functions involving polynomials, exponentials, and logarithms. Expect to work with social, life and physical science practitioners to understand how computation and mathematical models play a role in their work.

You’ll also learn about a wide range of applications, from predator-prey models to how statisticians use functions to model data through a series of case studies.

There are many other free Harvard certifications available on its website. Consult its course catalog here.