Education on the Cheap

When we left formal education, many of us were glad that the boulder of performance stress was finally lifted. We finished high school, got our degree, or finished our job learning – we're free!

But then, as we grow older, it becomes apparent that learning continues. No matter the reason, learning keeps coming back to us. An unknown software somewhere at a new job, learning or re-learning processes, maybe wanting to shift focus on our work lives, or simply spare time to fill – the reasons for learning are manifold.

In some cases, while the desire to learn is there, we might hesitate because of the involved time and cost. Can I spare time to attend classes while still caring for work and home? Do I have the money in my budget to pay for expensive classes? How will I know what I might need for the new thing I wish to learn?

Many of these questions can be answered with a straightforward solution: Free or low-cost online courses.

Whether you wish to enhance your career or pick up a new skill for your enjoyment, online courses can be found in many places and often at no or minimal cost. We'd like to introduce you to some to start you off and suggest picking the right course.

HSL team members have used all links listed in this article in the past; however, any endorsement comes without involved profit or similar bonuses.

Let's start with those courses that will need some investment:

·????????Udemy

Udemy is a learning platform that allows those who wish to share a skill to create content in video form and upload it to their site. Depending on the creator's request, most content here will come with a price tag from $10 to $200.

The good news here is that Udemy has frequent sales for its content. Grabbing content at a 90% discount is easy during these sales. If a course catches your eye but is currently very unaffordable, check back often to see if you can grab it at a reduced price during a sale!

Udemy helps you pick your course in many ways.?At a glance, user reviews explain how or why a course helped or did not help the user. You will also see how many users have left feedback on a course, giving you an idea of how popular a course may be. From here, if you view the details of a course, the number of total students (customers who bought the course) is shown. Each course displays the total length of the content, with minutes and hours listed clearly before you make your purchase. Information on which kind of person would benefit from the course will also be provided. For example, reviewing a course on AGILE will point out that this course helps build valuable skills for Project Managers.

·????????Coursera

Coursera, much like Udemy, allows the upload of creator-curated courses. But Coursera goes further than this: They also offer online degrees from universities and colleges, as well as free courses.

Unlike Udemy, the platform is not as peer-reviewed or review-driven. Degrees, in particular, will not offer you a direct review option. You may need to do further online searches to learn more about the quality of a degree course you are interested in attending.

When it comes to courses (either paid-for or free), the user experience is similar to the previously mentioned Udemy. Peer ratings and reviews are shown alongside the course, time to complete, difficulty level, learn-on-your-time, and other functions that are fully in place.

However, where Udemy will give you the price of a course upfront, Coursera will be a bit shy about cost. It can take some digging through different pages to get a precise cost overview, even for simple courses. Also, while certification is offered for some courses, you must expect to pay extra fees.

·????????Harvard University

Harvard offers a significant breadth of online courses, including free courses, from their website. Courses are offered online via the edX platform.

The university hosts paid-for courses ranging from $30 to $400 alongside free courses on classic and modern science fields, such as health and medicine, programming, or education and teaching. These courses are created by experts in their respective fields, and educational resources are on par with this excellence.

Peer-review tools are lacking on the site, which means you may need to use search engines to learn more about the offered courses.

·????????freeCodeCamp

Whether you are a newbie or a coding expert- brushing up on skills or adding new ones is always a great idea – and freeCodeCamp makes it easy.

From easy beginner's courses to elaborate certification, the hours of resources presented on the website will guide you to learn new skills, brush up on rusty ones, or learn better ways to execute your current work. Python, JavaScript, HTML, Databases, and even Excel courses – if you are working with code or data, chances are that you will find courses to level you up without ever having to log in or create an account.

Unlike previously explored courses, you will not find direct user feedback here, nor is there a grading system – but as everything is free and can be browsed in text form, there is a much smaller time investment to scan through an article to see if what you need has been touched on. Even if you start reading a page and discover that what you hope to learn isn't part of the presented information, your next article is just one search away.

·????????LearnThat

LearnThat offers freely available articles on their website, including tips on achieving general life skills, boosting your career with tips and tricks, and newspaper blog-like pieces. Unlike previously mentioned websites, these articles are less like courses or manuals and resemble more casual readers to browse in your free time. While these tutorials cannot compare to the courses mentioned on the previous websites, they can offer easy-to-read pieces about simpler concepts, such as writing a self-evaluation. Some articles can be very brief, and you will likely search for several articles on the same topic for a rounded experience.

Still, the style in which all articles are written is easy to follow and can be simpler to digest for basic information and light reading.

·????????YouTube

How much free educational content is shared on YouTube can be surprising. From simple Excel formula walk-throughs to more complex software solution demonstrations – YouTube might offer just what you're looking for.

For the most part, these will not be complete courses. You might find a user creating a series of videos and linking these in a playlist, but for the most part, you will need to make do with one-off videos as you search for new content after each video. Of course, there is very little quality control on the videos uploaded, and you might need to spend some time viewing a number of videos first to find the one which addresses what you need to know in a manner that is easy for you to understand or follow.

The advantage of learning on YouTube is that you can quickly narrow down your needs with the search function. It is also a learning platform of choice if all that is needed is a quick 10-minute video on creating a specific SQL query, running a stubborn function in Python, or browsing through a software review.

Whichever means of learning you choose, and for whichever goal you're engaging in learning, we hope to have given you a few ideas on how to start. If you're a fellow Pilot and you're interested in new learning ways, please also reach out to our HR team to see if they have more ideas on how to help you move your goals forward!