Professional development is essential whether you are actively employed, taking time off from work, job-hunting or looking to make a career change. And with the abundance of free courses available online today, learning new skills is easier than ever. Here are three no-cost websites that can help you meet your personal work-related goals:
- 1. Highbrow (www.gohighbrow.com) is a subscription-based service that delivers “bite-sized daily courses to your inbox” via brief, daily emails. Students can sign up for 10-part courses on topics like productivity, art, logic, science and more. The lessons are fantastic for sharpening your mind and delving into general interest topics that could be useful for making conversation at both networking events and during job interviews.
- 2. EdX (www.edx.org) offers online courses from a number of top-ranked academic institutions, including UC Berkeley, MIT and Harvard. Certain professional development courses have a fee attached; however, the majority of programs are free and can help you build professional skills in areas such as writing and grammar, business operations (including computer skills), the music industry and many more. Classes taught in Spanish, French, Turkish, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese are also available.
- 3. DuoLingo (www.duolingo.com) is a well-respected, no-cost resource for both English speakers interested in learning another language (the current roster offers 21 different options) and non-English speakers who want to learn English as a second language. Courses are self-paced and students can “test into” the level of learning that matches their current skill set.
These are just a small sample of the many classes available.
You can get additional information about continuing education resources by following the links below:
Cancer and Careers’ Professional Development Micro-Grants