What Is edX Harvard?

A Brief Introduction to edX

Before we jump into edX Harvard, let us talk about the platform edX as a whole.

Education is the key to success in life and edX is all about delivering quality education to all. In the beginning, education through online platforms sounded like an unnecessary fantasy. But now, since the pandemic has barricaded our lives, online education is the only plausible solution for all.

Now, what is edX? What is this platform’s goal? edX is an online platform that offers many certified courses on diverse subjects for all. Some of them are free while other courses will cost some money.

The learning site was found in May of 2012 by four scientists from Harvard and MIT. Their goal was to change the availability of education from “for some” to “for all”. Of course, it was a noble cause and thus edX was a non-profit organisation in the beginning.

edX had powerful educational institutions in its favour, but as a non-profit, it could not make an impact. In 2020, edX was rebranded and in July 2021, it had signed a deal of $800 million. This is where things have turned into seeing lights.

With their previous experience and links, edX now offers a range of training, courses on specific subjects, certification programs, and even full online Master’s degrees courses.

These courses are equivalent to what you will be taught in the respective universities. Now, there are over 2000 courses provided by 140+ institutions. Harvard is one of them (edX Harvard profile is HarvardX).

HarvardX Services

SO now let us start talking about edX Harvard. Harvard University is known as HarvardX in the edX platform. HarvardX has lots of courses and year-long programs for everyone on the edX platform. You can browse their huge selection of courses in their profile and get yourself enrolled for free. If you want to have some professional proof (certificate) of your course completion, then you must pay for the courses.

Harvard Free Courses

You can get access to all the HarvardX courses on Harvard Universities’ profiles in edX. There are a total of 150 HarvardX courses on edX for now. In the future, there will be more. We all know that the quality of education is more important than quantity. Harvard is providing a lot of courses on the edX platform. But are they as good as their offline counterparts?

Speculations say yes. The edX Harvard courses are rated 5/5 more than 10 times now.

These courses focus on many technical and conceptual subjects. There are no changes to any course materials or syllabus. But some necessary changes are made to make them applicable on online settings.

The courses are designed and modified to be self-paced. So you get to decide how fast you want to finish the course. Do you want to complete it in one week or two weeks? This also lets you decide your schedule. Flexible scheduling is preferable for those who are in the labour force.

The learnings are also instant. You can even assess yourself after each lesson. Each lesson comes with an assessment questionnaire in the end. You will have to fill it up and score the minimum required mark for moving to the next lesson of the course. SO there is no room for laziness here.

Each course comes with a discussion board, where everyone who has completed the course can ask questions and help others by answering their questions. It is like an after-class discussion among classmates.

But there is always room for doubt. Are Harvard edX courses legit? Yes, they are. Why wouldn’t they be? We are talking about one of the top educational institutions in the world in a powerful online educational platform.

Furthermore, the previous students have rated all the HarvardX courses 5 out of 5 and they have referred a friend for the courses. So yes, these courses from HarvardX are legit.

edX Harvard Courses

For those who want to know all about one subject, HarvardX has designed dedicated courses for them. Each program contains relevant materials of the respective subjects.

There are a total of 21 programs in edX Harvard’s profile. These programs can be useful for both students and professionals.

The courses are well-diversed. They are marked in two categories. Professional certificate program and XSeries program. The available courses are about country histories, philosophies. There are also courses for data science, machine learning, neuroscience, and genomics. Overall, you will find no lack of study programs in edX Harvard.

All the programs are well-designed. To know more about the courses of HarvardX, you just need to click on the program tiles on their profile. There you will be greeted with a full overview of the course. You will also find a program map of the course, showing you all the courses, you will need to complete in chronological order.

You will also be introduced to the instructors of the courses and get to know them. You can also get a basic idea of how long it will take for you to complete the program and how much time you will need to spend each day on the courses.

The programs are free to enrol. However, you will need to pay for the full experience. It is applicable for both XSeries and Professional certificate programs.

How much is the cost of each program? That depends on the program. Some programs cost less than $300, while others will cost more.

The Learning Procedure of edX Harvard

We have reviewed the courses and programs available at HarvardX. Are these Harvard edX courses legit? Yes, they are. But what is the learning procedure of these courses and programs?

As far as we can tell, the course material and syllabus are the same as their offline counterparts. However, some necessary changes have been made to implement these courses in online settings. Keeping that in our mind, let us talk about the learning procedure of the HarvardX courses.

Self-Paced

One of the major differences between online courses from traditional courses is that the online courses are self-paced. No one will force or pressurize you to complete the courses in HarvardX.

You will need to find your motivation to finish the course by yourself. On the plus side, you get to enjoy the benefits of flexible scheduling. You can decide to complete one or two lessons per day. Or even push your limits. The choice is yours.

Instant Learning

The courses are designed to deliver quick learning. Every topic can be taught at the moment you are studying them. This is a great feature for fast learners. They can finish the curse in a matter of hours and carry on with their studies at a faster pace.

Test Yourself After Every Lesson

While it is very common for every online platform to have a questionnaire at the end of each lesson, HarvardX has brought a small twist in their part.

You will need to perform at a satisfactory level to get to the next lesson. Otherwise, the algorithm will not allow you. This measurement effectively increases the attentiveness of all participants and thus there is no room for laziness.

Discussion Board

Naturally, students will have some questions, even after the course/ lesson has explained everything with enough details. Some students may have thought the answer differently and need the approval of their instructors. Others have opinions to share with course mates.

edX’s online platform has made room for that in their course/ program discussion board.

Each course and programs have a separate discussion board, so there is no clash of discussion among participants. You can freely ask any queries in this discussion board and even help others by answering their queries. It is like your regular discussion sessions, where a few classmates will sit together and go over the topic they were taught in class. Only this time, it is online.

Certification

After completing each course, the platform algorithm will register your completion and you will be presented with a certificate.

This certificate will recognise you for completing the course and it will contain signatures and recognition from Harvard officials. Some courses will provide it for free, while others will charge money.

Will this certificate serve any good? Of course, it will. Mastercard, an American company, has a record of accepting numerous employees who have no college degree but have completed relevant courses from edX. So yes, these course certificates will serve you in your career and that answers the question, “Are Harvard edX courses legit?”

Pricing of edX Harvard Courses and Programs

The pricing of the HarvardX courses and programs varies. As a result, we cannot pinpoint any price for their excellent service.

However, we can give you an idea by defining their price range. Let us start with the courses. Some of the courses are free. They are free to enroll and even the certification is free for them. If we put them beside, we may have to pay $40 to $150 for one course.

For the programs, you will have to pay between $200 to $600. It can outrange this assumption. Since programs are a combination of various courses together, it is understandable why the price is high.

So yes, that is the pricing of edX Harvard courses and programs. You can know about the exact price of each of the course’s menus.

Reliability of edX Harvard

How reliable are the courses at HarvardX? We think that you have already got the answer to that in our discussion of “Are Harvard edX Courses Legit?”

MasterCard, the American company, has accepted a lot of employees based on their completion of relevant edX courses. Those employees never went to college, yet they got the job.

On the other hand, these courses and programs available on edX Harvard are designed by Harvard University professors and instructors. All the courses will provide you certificates that are acknowledged by Harvard University.

You cannot simply tell us that anything from Harvard University is not legit, right?

So that puts an end to the discussion of “Are Harvard edX Courses Legit?”. Yes, they are legit and reliable.