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Harvard Launches Two New Free Certificate Courses

Yesterday, the CS50 team at Harvard launched two new courses: Introduction to Cybersecurity and Introduction to Databases with SQL.

Like previous CS50 courses, such as their introductions to computer science and Python, the two new courses offer free certificates of completion.

In this article, we go over the new courses to help you decide if they’re a good fit for you. And we explain in detail how you can earn a free certificate.

Course Instructors
Introduction to Cybersecurity
Introduction to SQL
Free Certificate: How to Earn One

Course Instructors

Course instructors (from left): David Malan and Carter Zenke

The new cybersecurity course is taught by Harvard professor David Malan, who also teaches CS50 — Harvard’s Introduction to Computer Science — which is the university’s most popular course both online and on campus, and one of Class Central’s Best Online Courses of All Time.

The new SQL course is taught by Carter Zenke, a CS50 preceptor turned primary instructor of his own course, similarly to Brian Yu, who teaches CS50’s artificial intelligence and web development courses.

The two new courses are the latest additions to the Harvard CS50 lineup. Originally, “CS50” referred to a single course, Harvard’s computer science introduction. However, due to the course’s popularity, Malan expanded it into a brand that now encompasses many courses.

Last year, the CS50 team launched an introduction to Python. With this year’s additions, the CS50 lineup has grown to 13 courses. Fortunately, most of them, including the two new ones, offer a free certificate. You can find more information on all CS50 courses and certificates in our guide.

Introduction to Cybersecurity

This course offers a global view of cybersecurity, helping you understand digital threats and how to protect yourself from them. It’s suitable for both technical and nontechnical audiences.

Among other topics, the course covers:

Account & Data Security: Learning how to protect the data in your accounts and devices, both in personal and professional settings.
Risk Assessment: Understanding cybersecurity as a function of risks and rewards for an adversary, and costs and benefits for you.
Threat Analysis: Discussing different kinds of digital threats to be aware of, and how to respond to them appropriately.
Detection Over Prevention: Seeing how auditing and monitoring support early threat detection and preempt attacks. (This could have helped us last year!)
AI in Cybersecurity: Discussing how AI can add an extra layer of security by identifying patterns and behaviors that may otherwise go unnoticed.

Introduction to SQL

This course focuses on databases and SQL, the primary language for creating, editing, and searching databases. Like the cybersecurity course, this course is suitable for all audiences.

Among other topics, the course covers:

SQLite & Basic Queries: Learning to query single tables of data using the simple database SQLite.
Relationships: Working with multiple tables and understanding how to define relationships between them.
Database Design: Discussing the intricacies of planning a database and constraining its structure using schemas and data types.
Data Manipulation: Using fundamental database operations to insert, update, and delete data within your database.
Query Optimization: Studying how to make your queries more efficient, so they’ll run faster and use less memory.
Other Databases: Discovering more powerful alternatives to SQLite, such as MySQL and Postgres.

Free Certificates: How to Earn One

These are the free certificates that you can earn (from left): SQL and Cybersecurity

Like most other courses in the CS50 lineup, Harvard’s new cybersecurity and SQL courses offer free certificates of completion. But be careful! The courses are offered on three platforms, but only one offers free certificates; the other two only have paid options — and they’re quite expensive.

More specifically, the courses are offered on:

EdX, where they offer paid certificates for $449 (cybersecurity) and $299 (SQL).
Harvard Extension School, where they offer paid transcripts that cost $3,220.
Harvard OCW, where they offer fully free certificates. The one you’re looking for.

The courses themselves are the same, including all the assignments. So unless you absolutely want a “verified” certificate or academic credit, I recommend you take the courses on Harvard OCW.

Here are the steps to unlock a free certificate:

Create Free Accounts: If you don’t have them yet, create a free GitHub and free edX account. That’s right, even though you’re taking the course via Harvard OCW, you still need a free edX account for submitting the assignments.
Complete the Course: Go to the Harvard OCW page for either cybersecurity or SQL. Each week includes a lecture and a problem set. Score at least 70% on all problem sets. If you score lower, you can resubmit.
Download the Certificate: Once you’ve completed all the problem sets with at least 70%, you’ll be able to download your free certificate here.

To get started, head over to the Introduction to Cybersecurity or Introduction to SQL on Harvard OCW. Happy learning!