CRMD compiles the 4 best free programming courses on the web.

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We’ve compiled 4 great resource to learn computer science that cost $0 dollars to start. Our criteria:

• Freely available
• Beginner-level courses that covers the fundamentals
• Online-accessible, no textbook requirements.
• Python-based with a robust curriculum (at least 15hours of study time)

So without further ado, here are CRMD’s 4 top free programming courses.

Coursera’s University of Toronto “Learn to Program” series.

Taught by University of Toronto’s associate professors Jennifer Campbell and Paul Gries, this 2-part series walks students through designing, coding, and validating their own Python programs. It is an excellent course for people who have no programming experience and want to get into the meat of Python. This self-paced course is estimated to take 7 weeks and 6-8 hours commitment per week.

MIT’s “Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python” course on edX.

This is a great course offered by one of the world’s best consisting mostly of lecture videos broken into small chunks. Along with video lectures, there are programming assignments and standalone quizzes to test your knowledge. It’s a 9-weeks long course that will challenge students.

Dataquest’s “Python basics” course.

Dataquest is a newcomer on the MOOC scene but with a devout following. One of their most popular courses is this introduction to Python that help learners understand the programing language “as a foundation for effective data science, including syntax, loops, functions, classes, and more.” Intermediate and advanced Python courses are also available for those who want to graduate to the next level of data science.

Learn Python with Codeacademy.

Finally, we have Codeacademy. This popular course is great for complete beginners who want to understand fundamental programming concepts as well as how to run basic Python scripts. A paid upgrade will unlock 8 interactive projects, 9 quizzes, and 1 final project for further learning.

This is neither a definitive nor exhaustive list of free programming courses online, so we encourage all to go out and explore. Did you take a course you liked that we forgot to mention? Comment with your experience or ask CRMD’s very own expert consultants and developers your programming related questions below. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to get top tips and tricks straight to your inbox every month.