Program overview
Solar energy technology use is expanding rapidly. The Solar Photovoltaic (PV) sector is the largest and fastest growing renewable energy employer worldwide with an increasing need for experts that can support this growth.
In this MicroMasters program you will gain the knowledge and skills needed to pursue a career in the solar energy field and become a successful solar energy professional. This program will teach you what is expected from solar experts, and will prepare you for employment in various capacities including:
- Systems design and engineering
- Solar systems installation
- Device fabrication and characterization
- QA and reliability testing
- Project management and consultancy as well as (technical) sales
What will you learn
- The physics of and how to model all aspects of a working solar cell: performance, efficiency limits and design rules.
- Design concepts and fabrication processes of various photovoltaic (PV) technologies and applications.
- How to evaluate components of a PV system: PV modules, inverters, DC-DC converters, batteries, charge controllers and cables.
- Application techniques for designing a PV system ranging from a residential rooftop system to a utility scale solar farm.
- Design concepts of microgrids that include PV systems.
- How to assess the economics and ecology of PV systems and communicate these accordingly.
Program Class List
1Solar Energy: Photovoltaic (PV) Energy Conversion
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2Solar Energy: Photovoltaic (PV) Technologies
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3Solar Energy: Photovoltaic (PV) Systems
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4Solar Energy: Integration of Photovoltaic Systems in Microgrids
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5Solar Energy Engineering: Comprehensive Exams
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Meet Your Instructors

Arno Smets

Miro Zeman

René van Swaaij

Olindo Isabella

Ravi Vasudevan

Seyedmahdi Izadkhast

Laura Ramirez

Pavol Bauer
Program overview
Want to learn about circuits and electronics? Wondering how the electronics behind sensors and actuators works, or how to make computers run faster, or your mobile phone battery last longer? This series of circuits and electronics courses taught by edX CEO and MIT Professor Anant Agarwal and colleagues is for you.
These online Circuits & Electronics courses are taken by all MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) majors.
Topics covered include: circuit abstraction, circuit elements such as resistors and sources, signals, and networks; circuit design and circuit analysis methods; digital abstraction, digital logic, and basic digital design; electronic devices including MOSFETs, digital switches, amplifiers; Energy storage elements like capacitors and inductors; dynamics of first-order and second-order networks and circuit speed; design in the time and frequency domains; op-amps, filters, and analog and digital circuits, signal processing, and applications. Design and lab exercises are also significant components of the XSeries program.
Weekly coursework includes interactive video sequences, readings from the textbook, homework, fun online laboratories, and optional tutorials. Each course will also have a final exam.
These are self-paced courses, so there are no weekly deadlines.
What you will learn
- How to design and analyze circuits using both intuition and mathematical analysis
- How to construct simple digital circuits and improve their speed
- How to construct and analyze filters and their frequency response using capacitors and inductors
- Design circuits applications using MOS transistors and operational amplifiers
- How to measure circuit variables using tools such as virtual oscilloscopes, virtual multimeters, virtual frequency analyzers, and virtual signal generators
- Compare the measurements of the circuit variables with the behavior predicted by mathematical models and explain the discrepancies
Program Class List
1Circuits and Electronics 1: Basic Circuit Analysis
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2Circuits and Electronics 2: Amplification, Speed, and Delay
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3Circuits and Electronics 3: Applications
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Meet Your Instructors

Anant Agarwal

Gerald Sussman

Piotr Mitros

Chris Terman

Bonnie Lam
Program Overview
Develop the fundamental skills needed for global excellence in manufacturing and competitiveness with the Principles of Manufacturing MicroMasters Credential, designed and delivered by MIT’s #1-world ranked Mechanical Engineering department.
This program provides students with a fundamental basis for understanding and controlling rate, quality and cost in a manufacturing enterprise.
The Principles of Manufacturing are a set of elements common to all manufacturing industries that revolve around the concepts of flow and variations. These principles have emerged from working closely with manufacturing industries at both the research and operational levels.
Targeted towards graduate-level engineers, product designers, and technology developers with an interest in a career in advanced manufacturing, the program will help learners understand and apply these principles to product and process design, factory and supply chain design, and factory operations.
This curriculum focusses on the analysis, characterization and control of flow and variation at different levels of the enterprise through the following subject areas:
- Unit Process Variation and Control: Modeling and controlling temporal and spatial variation in unit processes
- Factory Level System Variation and Control: Modeling and controlling flows in manufacturing systems with stochastic elements and inputs.
- Supply Chain – System Variation and Control: How to operate and design optimal manufacturing-centered supply chains.
- Business Flows: Understanding the uses and flow of business information to start up, scale up and operate a manufacturing facility.
What you will learn
- A new perspective for design and operational decision making at all levels of manufacturing, in the context of volume manufacturing, where rate, quality, cost and flexibility are the key metrics
- How to operate and control unit processes to ensure maximum quality using basic and advanced statistical and feedback control methods
- How to design and operate systems of processes with optimal capacity, resilience and inventory
- How to design and operate optimal supply chain systems
- The financial underpinnings of a manufacturing enterprise, including new ventures
Program Class List
1Manufacturing Process Control I
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2Manufacturing Systems I
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3Management in Engineering: Accounting and Planning
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4Supply Chains for Manufacturing: Inventory Analytics
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5Manufacturing Process Control II
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6Supply Chains for Manufacturing: Capacity Analytics
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7Manufacturing Systems II
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8Management in Engineering: Strategy and Leadership
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Meet Your Instructors

Stanley B. Gershwin

Sean Willems

Jung-Hoon Chun

Stephen Graves

Duane Boning

David Hardt
