You know that feeling. It's Monday morning and you've had a great weekend. The alarm is screaming at you. You lean over and hide under the pillow for a bit longer. You can't face it. Another Monday morning of dragging yourself out of bed to get to work on time for a job that you fell out of love with some time ago. Maybe you don't exactly hate it but you could think of many other things that you'd prefer to be doing. The problem is that you have bills to pay. You'd love to explore other careers, take some new courses, learn new things, but your employer won't pay and you can't afford it. Did you know though, there's plenty of free learning opportunities that you can sign up to and some of them offer qualifications too. In this article I'm going to talk you through five ways to transform your life through free learning opportunities.
1. Certificated online courses in England
Free courses in England provides a wide range of funded online training courses. From mental health, digital marketing, business administration, lean organisation management and many, many more. The great thing about these programmes is that not only are they completely free but you also receive a level 2 qualification on successful completion. This is equivalent to a GCSE. The courses are online and you can study them flexibly to fit in with your other commitments. I've recently taken the level 2 Counselling Skills course and what I found was that the content is very interesting although in comparison to other sites (described below) the presentation is quite dated (think lots of reading!). The other challenge I found was that although you are able to work through the programme flexibly you are set submission dates for your assignments which you must meet. I tried to extend one of my submission dates and was refused. I think this is due to the way in which the programmes are funded so the provider needs you to complete the course by a particular date so that they can claim their funds.
A level 2 qualification provides a good introduction to the subject matter. In some cases this qualification will be all you need but it is also a great way to check that you like the subject before advancing any further. You may be able to study for a level 3 qualification completely free too. To meet the criteria you need to be 19 or over and you should not already have a level 3 qualification. Alternatively, you might already have a level 3 qualification or higher but you earn below the National Living Wage annually (£20,319 from April 2023) or you already have a level 3 qualification or higher but you are unemployed.
2. Coursera
Coursera is an online learning platform that offers short courses and degrees many of which are designed by leading companies and universities. From business to computing, data science and health, there's a good range of programmes to choose from. The courses offered focus on the skills and knowledge we need to equip us for the world of work today. It's important to note that only some of the courses offered are free and it is a good idea to use the search engine to filter for the free courses that you are interested in.
I've completed a few of the Coursera courses and on the whole I've been impressed with both the design of the programmes and the content. It varies though and some of the programmes are still very text heavy, meaning that if you don't love reading you may struggle a bit. My favourite course on Coursera so far has to be "Driving business towards the Sustainable Development Goals" offered by Erasmus University Rotterdam. It was designed well with a good range of presenters, it included a variety of interactive exercises and it was fun. Most importantly, it was free! The only caveat though is that if you would like to a certificate that you can share on your social media/CV it will cost you £38.
3. Alison
Alison is a free online provider offering over 1000 courses in 10 categories ranging from health, language, business, teaching and academics, IT, engineering and construction, management, sales and marketing, English and personal development. Similar to Coursera, Alison partners with companies and universities to provide content. You can choose to study a certificate or a diploma with the latter generally offering a more in-depth learning experience over a longer period of time. Alison make their money through their certificate charges and ads. If you don't like the ads you can pay for the premium service at €7.99 per month. If you would like to receive a certificate to celebrate your achievement you will be charged. Prices differ according to whether you request a Certificate (for example a digital certificate costs €28, a printed certificate €30 and a framed certificate €40. For a diploma it costs €73 for a digital certificate, €106 for a printed certificate and €155 for a framed certificate. The certificates that you'll receive will be CPD accredited. If you don't need the certificate the learning is completely free.
These free learning opportunities can really help you to transition to a new role. Not all employers will recognise the learning platform you use. But, they will be impressed with your commitment to learning, your appetite for skills development and your knowledge of the learning platforms available on the web!
4. Bloggers and You Tubers
There is an amazing amount of really good free content on the web these days. Amazing people that are sharing their skills and knowledge for free. During the summer I signed up to a ten week personal finance course with Rebel Finance School. Not only was it excellent it was completely free. I attended a live 2 hour webinar every week for 10 weeks and learned so much. I'm going to write about this more in a future blog. My husband follows experts in AutoCad, advanced Excel and Sketchup on You Tube enabling providing him with an industry standard to gain further work opportunities. It does take some research to find quality content though. I've signed up to some programmes that I haven't completed due to poor design and in others the content is dated and not credible.
5. Peer to peer learning
So you really want to get into marketing/finance/HR/education or whatever. Who do you know that is already working in this area? Peer to peer learning is a great way to learn for free. This might involve shadowing someone at work to find out more about their role. It might involve learning over lunch. It doesn't have to be anything formal. It's about having someone provide a guide to or an insight into something you would like to know more about. A good friend of mine is fantastic at sales. I've completed some great courses but there is nothing like learning 'on the job'. Seeing how to implement tools and techniques in practice is fabulous for knowing how to apply learning. It might even lead to some work experience to help with your career transition.
Summary
So there it is. Five ways to transform your life through free learning opportunities. I wish you the very best of luck on your career journey. Do stay in touch and let me know how you get on. Please do share this blog with others so that they too can benefit from these free learning opportunities.
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