Education of embedded systems is essential for Computer Science and Electrical Engineering students. However, traditional courses of embedded systems in the university cannot satisfy all industrial requirements anymore due to the extreme wide applicable area of embedded systems nowadays. In this article, we propose a series of short courses for learning embedded systems. Three hardware platforms focusing on different applicable areas are applied in the courses, such that the course content can cover most popular applicable areas of embedded systems. The student feedback shows they learned much practical knowledge from the courses, and the courses also helped them to learn embedded software design for different applications.