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OPTIMIZE YOUR
Downtime The COVID-19 pandemic has derailed pretty much all of 2020 so far, but one very minor benefit to this nightmare is an awful lot of newfound free time, thanks to extended social distancing measures. So rather than binge-watching your 157th Netflix series of the year, why not spend your gift of time on a little selfimprovement? By Carla Thomas.
Level Up Put that grey matter to work by enrolling in an online course.
XUETANGX The first Chinese MOOC [massive open online course] platform, this open learning project created by Tsinghua University in 2013 launched its English interface just this year opening up a world of courses from leading mainland institutions, from Peking University to Fudan University and many more. next.xuetangx.com
FUTURELEARN This UK-based digital education platform offers courses and online degrees from 175 British and international institutions, with an immense scope of subjects such as creative arts, media, literature, law, healthcare, medicine, psychology and STEM, to name just a few. futurelearn.com
COURSERA The original MOOC platform offers unlimited access to over 3,000 courses. They also offer a range of online courses and professional certifications. coursera.org 20
UDACITY Specialising in technical education, this website offers paid online “nanodegrees� in subjects like data science, programming and business, as well as around 200 free individual courses for budding technologists. udacity.com