100% of students bookmark AI courses but only 1% finish them

I signed up for every free AI course and now my calendar's filled… and I haven't started a single one.

That's when I realized: I wasn't learning. I was course-hoarding.

No progress. No skills. Just a bookmark folder called "AI Learning" with 47 tabs I'll never open. I collected courses like Pokémon cards, except these ones expire and I still can't explain what a transformer is.

If that sounds familiar… you're not alone.

The real struggle isn't finding free AI courses. It's knowing which one to actually finish first.

But here's the thing—what you're actually trying to achieve should dictate which course you pick first.

We're All Course Collectors Now and Nobody's Learning

Every tech giant dropped free AI courses this year. OpenAI, Google, IBM, Anthropic—they're all handing out education like it's Halloween candy.

The result? Choice paralysis.

You bookmark Andrew Ng's course, then see OpenAI's Academy, then stumble into Google's prompt guide, then find some random YouTube playlist with 2M views. Now you're overwhelmed and scrolling reels instead.

As someone rightly said…

🗺️ The Actually-Finish-Something Roadmap

1. Here's the sequence that won't make your brain melt:

   Start Here: Artificial Intelligence Full Course 2025 (Simplilearn)
   10 hours. 1M+ views. People in the comments are actually getting jobs.

   • You'll learn: AI vs ML (finally), prompt engineering basics, how to talk about AI without sounding clueless

   • Why it works: Short, practical, and you'll build actual demos

   • Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkqINm-l3q0

2. Then: AI For Everyone (Andrew Ng)
   4 weeks. 4.8 stars. No coding required.

   • You'll learn: What AI can't do (important), business applications, how to not get scammed by "AI startups"

   • Why it works: Ng explains things like a human, not a research paper

   • Link: https://www.coursera.org/learn/ai-for-everyone

3. Next: Introduction to AI (IBM)
   Hands-on. Build stuff. Actually useful.

   • You'll learn: Python basics, chatbot building, how to not break things in production

   • Why it works: You'll have code to show people instead of just certificates

   • Link: https://www.coursera.org/learn/ai

4. Level Up: CS50's AI with Python (Harvard)
   7 weeks. Intense but worth it. CS50 reputation speaks for itself.

   • You'll learn: Algorithms, neural networks, stuff you can whiteboard in interviews

   • Why it works: Harvard quality, free price tag, and you'll actually understand how things work

   • Link: https://www.edx.org/course/cs50s-introduction-to-artificial-intelligence-with-python

5. Finish Strong: OpenAI Academy
   11 courses. $1M in API credits. Build weird stuff.

   • You'll learn: Prompt engineering, multimodal AI, how to make GPT do your bidding

   • Why it works: Free credits mean you can prototype that random idea you've been sitting on

   • Link: https://academy.openai.com

⚡ Why This Actually Works

Each course builds on the last one. No gaps. No overlap. No "wait, what's a neural network again?"

You'll go from "I think AI is cool" to "I built a thing that uses AI" in a few months. Not years. Not "someday when I have time."

☠️ Don't be a certificate collector tho…

Look, certificates are nice. But if you can't explain your own project or debug your own prompts, you'll freeze when someone asks "So, how does this work?"

Build stuff. Break stuff. Document the process. Keep your GitHub more active than your LinkedIn.

🔥 Final Word!!

Don’t wait for your professor to assign it—jump in, try a course, and see what you can build. Whether you’re a CS major, a creative, or just someone who wants to automate their life, there’s never been a better (or cheaper) time to learn. 

So go ahead—sign up for a course, build something weird, and share it with the world.

Until then: Keep learning, keep building, and keep vibing—even if you don’t know how it works.