My father used to always tell me, “You can never stop learning or the world will pass you by”. Now I know that seems pretty obvious, but ask your self this question and be 100% honest.
When was the last class you took?
Whether it was an online class, university class, night class, a class put on by another company. Whether it was a class to improve your career or just a fun class like cooking or wine tasting. If it has been more than a year since your last class I would start taking a good look at some classes you could take.
The world moves so fast these days with everything literally at the tips of our fingers. We need a recipe we look it up on our phones. We are having a problem at work we ask Google for help. Computer problems we again ask Google. Having all this information at your beckon call may seem like you are learning all the time. But there is something to be said for dedicating time once a week or even once every other week to focus on a topic you want to learn.
When you dedicate a certain amount of time to focus on a specific topic you retain the information much better than you ever could from just Googling a topic. Find a good instructor who can take a topic and really break it down for you into not only manageable pieces and part but logical sections that flow from one to the other.
Where do I find quality classes?
Quality classes and quality instructors can sometimes be hard to find. Most places in the United States have Community colleges that offer an affordable course. You can be pretty safe here that you will at least have an instructor who knows what they are talking about
Here is a course from my local community college in there Workforce Services section that my wife and I have wanted to do. You can also see the price isn’t terrible.
Online Courses are another hot topic right now and typically are self-paced courses that you purchase about a specific topic. There are tons and I do mean tons of market places to purchase online courses.
PluralSight is a great platform with many quality instructors and they cover a very large array of topics. You pay a monthly subscription and get access to their entire course selection.
Udemy is another platform that is great for learning but you need to be a little more careful here. Unlike PluralSight Udemy has a very small amount of requirements for an instructor to create a course. So you get a very wide range of course and you get a very wide range of quality. Many instructions take pride in the quality of their course while some seem like they just throw any course they can up as quickly as hey can. So read the reviews and don’t hesitate to ask for your money back if you purchase a course that just isn’t’ what you were expecting. I certainly have done this a couple of times.
Lynda.com or now it is LinkedIn Learning is another great online resource to learning a wide variety of topics mainly IT related topics. LinkedIn Learning like PluralSight is a monthly subscription fee for access to all of their content.
The SysAdmin School. I can’t finish this post without at least mentioning my site. The SysAdmin School is my online training site where I will have all of the courses that I teach. I do not yet have the number of courses that some of these other sites do but I take great pride in the creation of my courses and my open forum and dialog with my students.
My Challenge To You?!
Look through all of the different course offerings available to you and pick one class to take. Is it something that will improve your job or career? Is it something that will improve your life? Or is it just something that looks fun? It doesn’t matter, take that first step and sign up for a class today.
