10 Online Certificate Programs for High School Students
If you're a high school student interested in enhancing your academic profile, consider enrolling in an online certificate program! Courses and certifications can complement your learning by allowing you to explore concepts beyond your school curriculum.
Whether it's about acquiring new skills or delving into new subjects, certifications can offer you a structured path to learn and tangibly demonstrate your abilities. This can also enhance your college applications by indicating your ability to work with advanced material and practical knowledge in your chosen field. Additionally, online courses allow you to build on your knowledge from the comfort of your home!
Courses from well-established programs provide a competitive advantage, prepare you for the demands of higher education, and help you make informed decisions about your academic and career goals. Such experiences also provide foundational expertise and practical skills that can help you initiate research projects or startups.
To help you get started, here are 10 online certificate programs for high school students!
Cost: $799
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dates: Multiple four-week sessions are available. The next session begins on September 16, 2024. Each certificate program is self-paced and composed of 3 four-week courses.
Eligibility: Students in grades 6–12 can apply.
The Acting Techniques Certificate Program consists of three four-week courses for adults and teens. The course sections are designed for their respective age groups, either for adults (students 18 and older) or young people (students under 18). For students under 18, the Acting Techniques certificate program will also allow you to earn high school credit.
The following acting courses make up the certificate program, and may be taken in any order:
Acting Techniques: Monologues: This course will help you develop a solid understanding of acting and use that understanding to analyze scripts and build convincing characters for both the stage and screen. You will learn about the history of acting and acting methods to see how people all over the world have used acting to tell stories effectively.
Acting Techniques: Scene Study: The course explores how to analyze scripts to uncover the meaning of scenes and inform your performance. From there, you'll delve into essential techniques for understanding the dynamics of relationships within a scene and how to portray intentions and actions in a performance. You'll also explore how to be present in the moment, delivering dialogue and using movement to enhance the impact of your performance.
Acting Techniques: Improvisation: The course begins by exploring the foundational principles of improvisation and how to apply them within the context of scripted scenes. You'll then work on how to develop the character you are portraying, using improvisation to inform your character's identity, motivations, and tactics.
This is a solid opportunity for you if you’re passionate about refining your acting craft. You can also showcase your achievements with a credential from Interlochen, which will be a valuable addition to your résumé, college application, or LinkedIn profile.
Cost: $13–$42, depending on the time taken to complete the course.
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dates: Self-paced; 6 months at 10 hours a week
Eligibility: Open to all with no prior experience required.
The “Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate Program” is a 7-course series that includes courses such as Foundations of Digital Marketing and E-commerce, Attract and Engage Customers with Digital Marketing, From Likes to Leads: Interact with Customers Online, Think Outside the Inbox: Email Marketing, Assess for Success: Marketing Analytics and Measurement, Make the Sale: Build, Launch, and Manage E-commerce Stores, and Satisfaction Guaranteed: Develop Customer Loyalty Online.
Throughout this program, you will gain in-demand skills that prepare you for an entry-level job and learn how to use tools and platforms like Canva, Constant Contact, Google Ads, Google Analytics, Hootsuite, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Shopify, and Twitter. You will learn about developing digital marketing and e-commerce strategies; attracting and engaging customers through digital marketing channels like search and email; measuring marketing analytics and sharing insights; building e-commerce stores, analyzing e-commerce performance, and building customer loyalty.
This program will allow you to learn from subject-matter experts at Google and have a chance to build your portfolio with projects like customer personas and social media calendars to show to potential employers.
Cost: $536.94
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dates: Self-paced; 2 months at 4–6 hours per week
Eligibility: Open to all with no prior experience required.
The Communication Skills Professional Certificate Program, offered by Rochester Institute of Technology, focuses on effective business communication skills, from crafting a powerful story to creating impactful presentations and using tools for public speaking. The courses covered in this program include RITx: Storytelling in the Workplace, RITx: Public Speaking, and RITx: Visual Presentation.
In this program, you will learn about the elements of effective stories and communication strategies and how to use them in the workplace. You will also use active listening and understand various communication styles to build rapport. Additionally, you will learn to customize your messages for a specific audience, use key elements of the speech communication process to create a clear and powerful speech, apply best practices for presenting numerical data with visuals, and integrate fundamental principles of visual design into effective presentation skills.
Cost: $49–$147, depending on the time taken to complete the course.
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dates: Self-paced; 1 month at 10 hours a week
Eligibility: Open to all with no prior experience required.
The “Creative Writing Specialization” course offered by Wesleyan University is a 5-course series that includes courses such as Creative Writing: The Craft of Plot, Creative Writing: The Craft of Character, Creative Writing: The Craft of Setting and Description, Creative Writing: The Craft of Style, and Capstone: Your Story. Whether you have a finished novel that needs a fresh perspective or you've been nurturing an idea for a long time, this Specialization will offer you the tools to accomplish your objective.
This specialization covers elements of three major creative writing genres: short story, narrative essay, and memoir. In these courses, you will learn how to write a compelling story with interesting characters in a vivid setting, using a fresh and descriptive style. You will also get to analyze and constructively evaluate peer writing. In the Capstone, you will draft, rewrite, and complete a substantial original story in the genre of your choice.
Cost: $799
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dates: Multiple four-week sessions are available. The next session begins on September 16, 2024. Each certificate program is self-paced and composed of 3 four-week courses.
Eligibility: Students in grades 6–12 can apply.
The Digital Animation Studies Certificate Program consists of three four-week courses for adults and teens. The course sections are designed for their respective age groups, either for adults (students 18 and older) or young people (students under 18). For students under 18, the Acting Techniques certificate program will also allow you to earn high school credit.
The following three animation courses make up the certificate program, and must be taken in sequential order:
Digital Animation 101: This course deals with character design and the principles of solid drawing, staging, and exaggeration. You'll get to explore the nuances of timing, easing, squash, and stretch as you make your characters move.
Developing Animated Characters: This course covers all the key components of character creation, from exploring the foundational principles of shape language, color, and silhouette to mastering the nuances of facial expressions, body language, and accessorizing.
Animation Techniques—Expressions and Movement: This course is designed to build on your foundational knowledge of digital animation and improve your skills. You'll learn ways to communicate narratives through character body language and expressions, enhancing your ability to create visually engaging movements.
This program will help you learn the different nuances of digital animation and improve your skills. You can also showcase your achievements with a credential from Interlochen, which will be a valuable addition to your résumé, college application, or LinkedIn profile.
Cost: $895
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dates: July 22–August 2, 2024. This course is live-streamed, allowing you to ask questions and interact with the instructor.
Eligibility: Students aged 13–18 are eligible. No prior design experience is required.
AGI’s Video Editing Course offers an opportunity for students to work with the industry-standard tools in this field—Premiere Pro and After Effects. In video editing, you will use Premiere Pro to create video projects by editing videos, combining clips, adding music, and more. In motion graphics, you will use After Effects to create videos, animations, special effects, and more to make vivid designs. You will gain familiarity with all the key Adobe tools used by motion graphic designers and video editors in this course.
Additionally, you will learn to use a layered Photoshop file to create a title card; add subtitles, effects, and transitions to enhance your videos; learn key video terminology, and export your videos for sharing. You’ll also learn to animate the individual components of a logo, add transitions such as fade-ins & fade-outs, and export your project to create an animated GIF. This program is a solid opportunity for high school students with a strong interest in video editing and motion graphics.
Cost: $49–$147, depending on the time taken to complete the course.
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dates: Self-paced, but usually spans 2 months at 10 hours a week.
Eligibility: Open to all but knowledge in basic code, arithmetic, and algebra is required.
The “Machine Learning Specialization” course, offered by Stanford Online and DeepLearning.AI, provides a beginner-friendly pathway into machine learning. This series of three courses helps high school students and other learners grasp essential concepts in machine learning without needing prior experience.
The first course, "Supervised Machine Learning: Regression and Classification," demonstrates building machine learning models in Python using machine learning libraries. The second course, "Advanced Learning Algorithms," helps build and train neural networks. The final course, "Unsupervised Learning, Recommenders, Reinforcement Learning," covers unsupervised learning techniques such as clustering and anomaly detection.
The specialization emphasizes hands-on learning with interactive coding assignments and projects that use popular machine-learning tools and techniques. By working through these assignments, you’ll gain practical experience and learn how to implement machine learning models to solve problems like predicting housing prices or recognizing handwritten digits.
Cost: $375.95
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dates: Self-paced; 2 months at 4–6 hours per week
Eligibility: Open to all with no prior experience required.
The Leadership and Communication Professional Certificate Program, offered by Harvard University, focuses on improving your leadership communication style, improving decision-making, and developing as a leader in this two-course series. The courses covered in this program include HarvardX: Exercising Leadership—Foundational Principles and HarvardX: Rhetoric—The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking.
In the first course, Exercising Leadership—Foundational Principles, you will learn how to be an effective leader and motivate your team while navigating change and tough challenges.
In Rhetoric—The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking, you will get to explore proven communication techniques and strategies to learn how to articulate your ideas to achieve your goals. You will also learn about the ethical use of rhetoric, dialogue, listening, and self-criticism.
This program will help you develop different ways of communicating through writing and speaking. You will also learn how to create strong presentations and persuade your audience.
Cost: $79–$236, depending on the time taken to complete the course.
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dates: Self-paced; 4 months at 10 hours a week
Eligibility: Open to all with no prior experience required
The “Digital Marketing Specialization” course offered by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a 7-course series that includes courses such as The Digital Marketing Revolution, Marketing in a Digital World, Digital Marketing Analytics in Theory, Digital Marketing Analytics in Practice, Digital Media and Marketing Principles, Digital Media and Marketing Strategies, and Digital Marketing Capstone.
This Specialization will help you explore several aspects of the new digital marketing environment, including topics such as digital marketing analytics, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and 3D Printing. This program will help you gain a comprehensive understanding of the foundations of the new digital marketing landscape and acquire a new set of stories, concepts, and tools to help you digitally create, distribute, promote, and price products and services.
Once you complete the courses, you will have the opportunity to apply your skills on a real-life capstone project setup in partnership with Grainger which is a global B2B supplier of Maintenance Repair and Organization supplies.
Cost: $375.95
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dates: Self-paced; 6 months at 6–14 hours per week
Eligibility: Open to all with no prior experience required
The Computer Science for Web Programming Professional Certificate Program, offered by Harvard University, is a two-course program that combines CS50’s legendary Introduction to Computer Science course with CS50's Web Programming with Python and JavaScript and takes a deep dive into the design and implementation of web apps with Python, JavaScript, and SQL using frameworks like Flask, Django, and Bootstrap.
During the program, you’ll learn to scale your web applications, keep track of changes made to code, coordinate code between different people, and test changes to code. You will also learn to design and implement web pages and web apps and gain familiarity with several languages, including C, Python, SQL, and JavaScript plus CSS and HTML.
You will learn how to write and use APIs, create interactive UIs, and utilize cloud services like GitHub and Heroku through hands-on projects. By the end of the course, you will have gained knowledge and experience in principles, languages, and tools that will enable you to design and deploy applications.
One other option - the Lumiere Research Scholar Program
If you’re interested in pursuing independent research, you could also consider applying to one of the Lumiere Research Scholar Programs, selective online high school programs for students founded with researchers at Harvard and Oxford. Last year, we had over 4000 students apply for 500 spots in the program! You can find the application form here.
Also check out the Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit research program for talented, low-income students. Last year, we had 150 students on full need-based financial aid!
Bonus - Horizon Research Program
If you’re looking for a competitive mentored research program in subjects like data science, machine learning, political theory, biology, and chemistry, consider applying to Horizon’s Research Seminars and Labs! This is a selective virtual research program that lets you engage in advanced research and develop a research paper in a subject of your choosing. Horizon has worked with 1000+ high school students so far, and offers 600+ research specializations for you to choose from.
You can find the application link here
Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a PhD student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.
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