Professional Courses

Taking great photographs requires you to "see" as a professional photographer does; to train your eyes using the same fundamental techniques and principles the experts use to create unforgettable images from the grandest (and simplest) of subjects. With Fundamentals of Photography, you'll learn everything you need to know about the art and craft of great photography straight from a professional photographer with more than 30 years of experience. Designed for people at all levels, these 24 lectures are an engaging guide to how photographs work and how to make them work better for you.

The gift of storytelling may be one of life's most powerful—and envied—skills. A well-crafted narrative can keep the people, values, and life lessons you hold dear alive and give you the power to influence others. Now, The Art of Storytelling: From Parents to Professionals reveals the tried-and-true methods experienced storytellers use to develop and tell entertaining and memorable stories. In 24 enthralling lectures, Professor Hannah B. Harvey of East Tennessee State University demonstrates how to master the art form’s basic principles with the same dynamic energy that has made her an internationally recognized professional storyteller and award-winning educator. Even if you never plan to set foot on a stage, knowing what a professional storyteller does in the process of crafting and delivering a tale allows you to enhance the stories you tell everyday—to your children at bedtime, in your conversational anecdotes, and in your presentations at work.

Investigate the myriad ways we think about, talk about, and write sentences. In Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft, Professor Brooks Landon from the University of Iowa—one of the nation's top writing schools—shows you the pleasure in reading and writing great sentences. Explore the stylistic rewards (and risks) of various sentence forms, learn how to build and appreciate effective and elegant sentences, get unique insights into the nature of great writing—and discover how you can achieve some of this greatness yourself.

• Save Up To $390

• Starting at $19.95

Like it or not, one of the most important things you do on a daily basis is converse with others. Successful conversations help you advance professionally and make, maintain, and deepen relationships. Fortunately, it’s a skill set anyone can acquire and refine. In just six lectures, How Conversation Works: 6 Lessons for Better Communication will teach you key strategies that can dramatically improve your ability to speak with anyone, from strangers to supervisors. Delivered by award-winning English professor Anne Curzan of the University of Michigan, this highly practical course focuses on the fundamental principles you need to become more conversationally aware and savvy at home, in the workplace, and beyond.

• Save Up To $185

Strategic thinking is a powerful and invaluable skill, one that leads to greater chances of success in whatever professional and personal projects you’re involved in. It involves setting goals, developing long-range plans, anticipating the unexpected, analyzing your environment, and even cooperating with your competitors. With Strategic Thinking Skills, you’ll get a simple and comprehensive guide to the skills, tactics, techniques, tools, case studies, and lessons behind this all-important process. Award-winning Professor Stanley K. Ridgley of Drexel University has crafted these 24 lectures as an accessible way for you to engage with thinking that will help you think—and act—more strategically in business and in your own life.

• Save Up To $185

Get an unrivaled overview of one of the most pressing issues of our day in Foundations of Economic Prosperity, 24 lectures taught by Professor Daniel W. Drezner of the prestigious Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Professor Drezner leads you to fundamental insights about how the modern world works and an understanding of the functioning of the U.S., European, Chinese, and other major economies, as well as an appreciation for the special problems faced by underdeveloped nations.

• Save Up To $185

The proliferation of intrusive new technologies is putting many of our presumed freedoms in legal limbo. Today, it’s easy to think that we have far more privacy and other personal rights than we in fact do. Only by educating ourselves about the current state of the law and the risks posed by our own inventions can we develop an informed opinion about where to draw hard lines, how to promote changes in the system, and what we can do to protect ourselves. In Privacy, Property, and Free Speech: Law and the Constitution in the 21st Century, Professor Jeffrey Rosen delivers 24 eye-opening lectures that immerse you in the Constitution, the courts, and the post–9/11 Internet era that the designers of our legal system could scarcely have imagined

• Save Up To $160

From technology to business, two (or more) heads often prove to be better than one—but only if those heads are cognitively diverse. Diverse perspectives are a powerful tool for maximizing productivity and enhancing collective performance. Now, in The Hidden Factor: Why Thinking Differently Is Your Greatest Asset, you can learn the strategies that make you a more diverse thinker and position you to break down institutional silos and build robust, effective teams. Delivered by Professor Scott E. Page of the University of Michigan—a pioneering researcher in his field—these 24 thought-provoking lectures are packed with case studies, cautionary tales, and formal mathematical methods that prove the case for cognitive difference.