Caltech Courses & Certifications Online

Course Name

Course Description

Pricing Options with Mathematical Models

An introduction to the Black-Scholes-Merton model and other mathematical models for pricing financial derivatives and hedging risk in financial markets.

The Science of the Solar System

Explore the solar system using concepts from physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. Learn the latest from Mars, explore the outer solar system, ponder planets outside our solar system, and search for habitability in the universe. A new cohort begins every 10 weeks. The workload is approximately 5-7 hours per week.

The Evolving Universe

A survey of the physical universe and its constituents, including the formation, function, and evolution of stars, galaxies, black holes, quasars, and more. This course is available now and is self-paced.

Getting started with cryo-EM

Learn the fundamental principles underlying cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) starting with the basic anatomy of electron microscopes, an introduction to Fourier transforms, and the principles of image formation. Building upon that foundation, the class then covers the sample preparation issues, data collection strategies, and basic image processing workflows for all 3 basic modalities of modern cryo-EM: tomography, single particle analysis, and 2-D crystallography. This course is available now and is self-paced. It is available on Coursera, YouTube, and iTunes U. Access to iTunes U is ONLY with an iOS device with the iTunes U app installed.

Galaxies and Cosmology

An introduction to the modern extragalactic astronomy and cosmology, the physical universe, big bang, formation and evolution of galaxies, quasars, and large-scale structure. A previous session was from January to March 2016, and the workload was 6–9 hours per week.

Caltech-JPL Summer School on Big Data Analytics

This is an intensive, advanced summer school (in the sense used by scientists) in some of the methods of computational, data-intensive science. It covers a variety of topics from applied computer science and engineering, and statistics, and it requires a strong background in computing, statistics, and data-intensive research. A previous session was in September 2014, with a workload of around 20-25 hours per week, or self-paced.

Drugs and the Brain

The neuroscience of drugs for therapy, for prevention, and for recreation. You'll learn the prospects for new generations of medications in psychiatry, aging, and treatment of substance abuse. A previous session was from January to February 2014, with a workload of 4–6 hours per week.

Quantum Cryptography

This interdisciplinary course will teach you how to use quantum effects, such as quantum entanglement and uncertainty, to implement cryptographic tasks with levels of security that are impossible to achieve classically. It was developed in collaboration between QuTech at Delft University of Technology and the California Institute of Technology.