The first few months of the year is always a great time to reflect on areas of improvement for the rest of the year. Usually one of those decisions relates to your career and how you want to grow professionally. If you don’t want to get a degree or another degree, there are many awesome and affordable websites and platforms that will provide you with skills for you to get that promotion or make that next career move. Here are my top 5 websites to get Skills to Help You Advance Your Career:
Coursera
Price: Free, but $49-$79 to get certificates for specializations and it can cost more if you are getting a Master’s ex. $22,000 for the iMBA through University of Illinois
Coursera is a great platform to get access to amazing classes from universities around the world. You can learn new languages, statistics, coding, business skills, different social science topics and more. One of the cool things about Coursera is that classes are free to take, but if you want a certificate of completion, then you have to pay. Also, Coursera is working with different universities to make affordable degrees- like the iMBA program through the University of Illinois for $22,000. While I know $22,000 doesn’t sound super affordable, it definitely is compared to the traditional MBA.
Coursera classes are taught online so you can access them anywhere. Also, the option of getting a certificate is a great way to demonstrate to an employer that you have the necessary skills to get that promotion or next job without spending a lot of money on an entire degree.
Skillshare
Price: Free or $15/ Month or $99/Year- save 45%
Skillshare is a website that provides affordable classes covering a wide range of topics- covering Business to Design. There are lots of amazing classes offered on Skillshare for people working in creative industries or wanting to learn different skills within creative industries. The classes are fairly short in length, but provide a lot of content in blocks of time so you can pause and practice a concept. What I think is really great about Skillshare is that when you complete a class, you have to do a project to demonstrate the skills learned in the class. This provides you with a portfolio of work, which is excellent to have for job interviews or meetings with your boss about promotions.
Udemy
Price: Free- $200
Udemy is another great website to use as a resource for gaining new skills. They have classes covering IT & Software to Test Prep and everything in between- literally! There are so many interesting classes, that I want to take all of them! Udemy classes range in price, and sometimes all of the ones that cost money are on sale for $10- that is a great price! I like that you can take the classes are your own pace so you can practice skills until you master them. The courses are broken down into manageable topics so you won’t be overwhelmed by having to sit for 4 hours to complete a course start to finish (unless you want to). I’ve taken classes through Udemy and loved them!
Smartly
Price: Free*
Smartly is unique because it is an Education and Technology platform, and the creators believe that education should be free, so they developed a free MBA program. How awesome is that?! They have developed a curriculum that competes with other MBA programs, and they have career services.
If you don’t get admitted to the MBA Program they invite you to complete the business fundamental courses for free and you get the certificates that show you completed the courses. This is great for your resume or LinkedIn page!
*They also have an Executive MBA program that has a small fee.
Extension Programs through Universities
Price: Free – a few thousand dollars
Extension programs are great because they allow you to take classes or get a certificate through a university for a fraction of the cost. Some extension programs have free to low-cost programs and others charge $500- a few thousand to complete all of the courses. I’m currently completing a Specialization through UCLA Extension and I think it is a great program. It is online and it goes at a reasonable pace. I think Extension programs are great for working professionals because the work isn’t too hard and classes are set at a nice pace.
Also, some extension programs allow you to use the classes earned towards your degree!
I hope these suggestions help you make that next move in your career.
Comment below if you have any other websites that you like to use to get skills from!
Written by Hilary of the Cross Country Millennial