10 free online courses starting in January (2017)

A selection of options to train through the Internet without spending money.

We are in an era in which to stay in the labor market it is necessary to renew and train continuously. Nowadays, having a degree or a master's degree is a necessary but generally insufficient requirement to get a job.

In addition to experience, both specialization and diversity of knowledge are rewarded. And keeping oneself educated is not only important in terms of work, but it also enriches the psyche, makes us see things from new perspectives and even encourages the maintenance of intellectual capacities, strengthening them. That is why in this article we are presenting a series of online courses that are starting or can be taken during this month of January.

• This article may interest you: "25 best free online courses in Psychology".

10 courses to start the year

New year, new life. In order to start this 2017 with dynamism and to make the mind work again after the Christmas excesses, we have selected some courses related to psychology and humanities that start this month.. 

Most of them are free or only require a small outlay for the corresponding certificate.

1. Psychological First Aid Course (PAP)

• Autonomous University of Barcelona

This is a recurrent course in the recommendations of free online training, being one of the most successful at present. It is a five-week on-demand course offered in Spanish (although the audio of the videos is in English) by the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Barcelona Crisis Center.

This course enables you to acquire the skills to apply psychological first aid in emergency situationswhether personal or community. It enables to prepare scenarios in which to interact with those affected in such situations and their relatives in order to apply first aid in situations of great stress and tension.

2. Keys to Managing People

• IESE Business School

This five-week course, which will begin on January 9, focuses on the field of Human Resources, offering training in many fundamental aspects of human resources management.This five-week course, which will start on January 9, focuses on the field of Human Resources, offering training in many fundamental aspects of organizational management. Competency management, selection processes, recruitment, hiring, evaluation, promotion and compensation are the topics covered during the course. It is offered by IESE Business School, in Spanish.

3. The Addict's Brain

• Emory University

Addiction to different types of substances has been common throughout history and continues to be a problem today. Therefore, this course offered in English by Emory University, which begins on January 23, will focus on the different types of drugs, their effects on the brain, the disorders and alterations they cause, and the ways to treat those suffering from substance use disorders. and the ways to treat those who suffer from substance use disorders. substance use disorders.

4. Computational Neuroscience

• University of Washington

How neurons encode and decode information, how neural networks learn, and how brain plasticity influences the whole process are essential elements in describing how the nervous system processes information. how the nervous system processes information. This course, offered by the University of Washington, focuses on explaining and providing information on these and other topics in computational neuroscience.

5. Visual Perception and the Brain

• Duke University

Vision is one of the senses that human beings have more developed, depending to a great extent on it for the correct adaptation to the environment and its absence or loss is a major handicap. Throughout this course, which begins on January 26th, we will explore how the visual system works and how our brain is capable of representing and working with elements such as color, shapes, lights, spaces or the visual capture of movements.

6. Cultural representations of sexualities

• Autonomous University of Barcelona

Sexuality is a complex dimension of the human being that throughout history has been treated in different ways in different cultures. Gender, sexual orientation and sexual identity are analyzed through different media and cultural representations such as cinema or literature in this course in Spanish offered by the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.

7. Introduction to Family Therapy

• IASE: Advanced Institute of Health and Education

The family is one of the most important spheres of life, where we begin our development and where we generally have our main reference figures. The family marks a lot the type of development that the infant and later adult will have. In this course based on the systemic theory different ways of working with the different types of family environments and their particularities are presented.

IASE offers the possibility of taking only one of its free courses per student, so it is advisable to visualize the available courses in order to choose the one that best suits our needs.

8. Brain Analysis: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life

• University of Chicago

Behavior, thought, emotion, perception... all of these are regulated by our nervous system. Understanding how this system works and how it communicates with the rest of the body is the objective of this course offered by the University of Chicago. Entirely in English, the neuroanatomy of different senses and processes (whether perceptual, motor or even cognitive) is visualized, as well as how body homeostasis is regulated and how neuronal communication takes place.

9. Sexuality... much more than sex

• University of the Andes

A four-week introductory course offered in Spanish is especially oriented to educators and pedagogues, as well as parents and health professionals. The contents of this course allow those who take it to explain in an understandable way basic concepts such as sex, gender, sexual orientation and sexual identity, and how the experience of these concepts can be variable and go far beyond mere physical contact..

10. Initiation to psychoexpression

• IASE: Advanced Institute of Health and Education

Applicable in the field of education and clinical practice, psychoexpression bases its action on the emission of the creative facet, releasing the emotional and psychic blockages of students and patients through playful activities and in which inner concerns and fears can be expressed, integrating humanism and art therapy. This brief introductory course shows us the fundamentals and ways of putting this branch of psychology into practice.

IASE offers the possibility of taking only one of its free courses per student, so it is advisable to visualize the available courses in order to choose the one that best suits our needs.