On this page, we’ve collected some of the best courses we know of for upskilling within various careers and cause areas. The large majority of them are free to access. Most of them are able to be completed at your own pace, though some are more structured, offering regular interaction with others taking the course.
Courses to upskill for high-impact careers
The courses outlined below will give you an opportunity to both test your personal fit and upskill for career paths and disciplines that could have a large positive impact.
Statistics and data skills
MIT’s MicroMasters in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy
Price: free with optional paid track.
Format: solo learning.
Taught by esteemed Economics faculty at MIT, including the program’s faculty directors Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee, Sara Fisher Ellison, and Benjamin Olken, the program offers graduate-level courses that combine the modern tools of economics and policy design with a strong foundation in economic and mathematical principles.
Raj Chetty’s Big Data to Solve Economic and Social Problems
Price: free.
Format: solo learning.
This course provides an introduction to modern applied economics in a manner that does not require any prior background in economics or statistics. It is intended to complement traditional Principles of Economics (Econ 101) courses. Topics include equality of opportunity, education, health, the environment, and criminal justice.
Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate
Price: free with optional paid certificate.
Format: cohort or solo learning.
Over 8 courses, gain in-demand skills that prepare you for an entry-level job. You’ll learn from Google employees whose foundations in data analytics served as launchpads for their own careers.
Evaluating Social Programs
Price: free.
Format: solo learning.
Randomized evaluations can be valuable tools for measuring the impact of social programs. Learn why and when to use them, and how their findings can inform the design of evidence-based policies and programs.
Writing and communication skills
Journalism Now’s courses on journalism
Price: free.
Format: solo learning.
Journalism Now offers a large collection of free structured courses on various topics in journalism, such as conflict, economics, and the environment, as well as more technical skills related to journalism.
Good with Words: Writing and Editing Specialization
Price: free with optional paid certificate.
Format: solo learning.
This comprises four separate courses that focus on good written communication: word choice and word order, structure and organization, drafting, and revising.
Fundraising and marketing skills
Anima International’s Fundraising Essentials
Price: free.
Format: solo learning.
This introductory fundraising course will help you get started. You will learn crucial fundraising terms, create a map of your potential donors and help you understand what donors look for when deciding whether to fund a program. Though Anima International is focused on animal welfare, the course is not exclusively designed for animal advocates.
Google’s Digital Marketing and E-Commerce certificate
Price: free with optional paid certificate.
Format: solo learning.
In this certificate program, you’ll learn in-demand skills and get AI training from Google experts. Learn at your own pace, no degree or experience required.
Coding and machine learning
Deep Learning Specialization
Price: free with optional paid certificate.
Format: solo learning.
The Deep Learning Specialization is a foundational program that will help you understand the capabilities, challenges, and consequences of deep learning and prepare you to participate in the development of leading-edge AI technology.
Transformers for Natural Language Processing
Price: ≈$120.
Format: solo learning.
This course teaches how modern AI language models like ChatGPT and GPT-4 work, covering three main areas: using pre-trained models for tasks like text classification and translation, fine-tuning them on your own data, and understanding the underlying transformer architecture. It’s designed for people who want both practical NLP skills and a deeper understanding of how these models actually function.
Learn about a new cause area
These courses will help you get up to speed on various high-priority global problems we’ve covered on the site.
AI safety & governance
BlueDot Impact AI Alignment course
Price: free.
Format: cohort-based.
The AI Alignment course is designed to introduce the key concepts in AI safety and alignment, and will give you space to engage with, evaluate and debate these ideas. You’ll meet others who are excited to help mitigate risks from future AI systems and explore opportunities for your next steps in the field.
Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics and Society
Price: free.
Format: solo learning.
This course, developed by Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center for AI Safety, aims to provide an accessible introduction to students, practitioners and others looking to better understand these issues. The course aims to foster a thoughtful and nuanced understanding of AI safety, equipping participants with the tools and insights needed to navigate this rapidly evolving field.
Digital Governance
Price: free with optional paid certificate.
Format: solo learning.
This course explores how emerging technologies like AI, machine learning, and chatbots are creating new legal and political challenges in our digital world. Students will learn to identify the risks and impacts of digitization on EU law, markets, and society, while developing skills to analyze real-world cases and understand how different fields of law intersect with technology.
Google Deepmind Short Course on AGI Safety
Price: free.
Format: solo learning.
The course offers a concise and accessible introduction to AI alignment, consisting of short recorded talks and exercises (75 minutes total) with an accompanying slide deck and exercise workbook.
Biosecurity
Bluedot Pandemics course
Price: free with paid track.
Format: solo learning.
Become equipped to methodically analyze and fight pandemic threats using structured approaches and practical solutions. On the course, you will learn about policy and technical interventions to mitigate catastrophic pandemics, as well as identify projects and career options you could pursue to mitigate pandemic risk and be supported in your exploration of these projects.
Next Generation Biosecurity
Price: free with optional paid track.
Format: solo learning.
In this course, you will get an introduction to biosecurity, biological threats and how to counter them in your work. You will also learn about responding to biological challenges and learn to examine issues in the lab.
Other global catastrophic risks
EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament eLearning Course
Price: free.
Format: solo learning.
This course aims to cover all aspects of the European Union’s non-proliferation and disarmament agenda and provide a comprehensive knowledge resource.
Broad societal improvements
Systems Thinking in Public Health
Price: free with optional paid certificate.
Format: solo learning.
This course provides an introduction to systems thinking and systems models in public health. Problems in public health and health policy tend to be complex with many actors, institutions and risk factors involved. If an outcome depends on many interacting and adaptive parts and actors the outcome cannot be analyzed or predicted with traditional statistical methods.
Progress Studies for Young Scholars
Price: free.
Format: cohort-based.
Progress Studies for Young Scholars is a live, small-group, virtual course in the history of industrial civilization for high school students.
Global health and wellbeing
Essentials of Global Health
Price: free with optional paid certificate.
Format: solo learning.
Essentials of Global Health will introduce you to this topic in a well-structured, clear and easy-to-understand way. Much of the course will focus on five questions: What do people get sick, disabled and die from? Why do they suffer from these conditions? Which people are most affected? Why should we care about such concerns? What can be done to address key health issues, hopefully at least cost, as fast as possible, and in sustainable ways?
MIT’s MicroMasters in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy
Price: free with optional paid track.
Format: solo learning.
Taught by esteemed Economics faculty at MIT, including the program’s faculty directors Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee, Sara Fisher Ellison, and Benjamin Olken, the program offers graduate-level courses that combine the modern tools of economics and policy design with a strong foundation in economic and mathematical principles. We mentioned this course earlier, but wanted to highlight it again because of its particular relevance to global health and wellbeing.
Measuring Health Outcomes in Field Surveys
Price: free.
Format: solo learning.
This course will focus on the fundamentals of field-based health research with an emphasis on measuring health outcomes in low-resource settings. The course includes real-world examples from J-PAL research studies in India and Kenya, combined with exercises to provide practical insights about study design, measurement of health outcomes and data collection, as well as the common challenges and constraints in implementing health surveys.
Climate change
The Health Effects of Climate Change
Price: free with optional paid certificate.
Format: solo learning.
By looking at air quality, nutrition, infectious diseases, and human migration, this course will show you how increases in greenhouse gases impact public health. Created with support from the Harvard Global Health Institute, this course will explain how climate change impacts people around the globe, but also how it directly affects you and your life.
Global Warming I: The Science and Modeling of Climate Change
Price: free with optional paid certificate.
Format: solo learning.
This class describes the science of global warming and the forecast for humans’ impact on Earth’s climate. Intended for an audience without much scientific background but a healthy sense of curiosity, the class brings together insights and perspectives from physics, chemistry, biology, earth and atmospheric sciences, and even some economics—all based on a foundation of simple mathematics (algebra).
Animal welfare
Your Role in Animal Advocacy
Price: free.
Format: solo learning with optional community.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to level up your impact, by the end of this course, you’ll be able to: Discover the range of animal advocacy roles and how each creates real impact—so you can find what fits you best; design a personalised career plan to create lasting change for animals and fulfil your purpose; get clear on your next steps and feel confident putting them into action.
Other courses
These are some additional courses that focus on learning more general tools for increasing your impact.
Make your high-impact career pivot
Price: free.
Format: cohort-based.
A free 4-day online bootcamp to identify high-impact career paths that match your skills, apply to opportunities, and build a network to accelerate your career pivot.
Making a Difference: Evidence-based Impact
Price: free with paid track.
Format: solo learning.
This interdisciplinary course will provide you with a collection of practical tools from economics, public health, behavioral science, ethics, exact sciences, and more to help you achieve a positive and significant impact. From the small decisions we make every day, through the initiatives we choose to support, to our most significant life choices, such as what career to pursue, relying on existing evidence and well-established tools in decision making can help you drive a change you believe in.
Introductory Effective Altruism Program
Price: free.
Format: cohort-based.
In this free, 8-week online course, you’ll meet like-minded people and explore ways to have more impact with your careers and donations. You’ll be introduced to the ideas of Effective Altruism, a movement focused on identifying and solving pressing problems.
Leaf courses
Price: flexible (free if needed).
Formate: cohort-based.
Leaf runs a host of impact-focused courses for students in the UK and Ireland who haven’t yet started university. The courses run for 5 weeks with cohorts of other students. At the time of writing, they run courses on the Mathematics of Morality, Biology for a Better Tomorrow, History to Shape History, and Dilemmas and Dangers in AI.
High Impact Professionals’ Impact Accelerator
Price: free.
Format: cohort-based.
The Impact Accelerator Program (IAP) is a 6-week course that helps skilled, driven professionals do more good in the world. Through live sessions, leading-edge content, and a thriving global community, the IAP aids participants in designing an impact path that aligns with their interests, aptitudes, and values.