WIL: Free/Low Cost Professional Development Resources

Open laptop with a open notebook in front of it and a coffee mug to the right. Sitting in front of a window on a sunny day.
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Professional development is important regardless of your employment status. Last year, I had difficulties finding training that fit into my budget and resigned myself to only reading books and blog posts. This year, though, has been an interesting experiment, Since the pandemic lockdown began, I've noticed an uptick in accessible training at free or low costs. Here are some of the resources that I've used to increase my skills over the past few months.

Associations

Organizations in your interest area are a great place to look for free or low-cost professional development. I’ve recently become a member of several organizations who offer webinars, in-person training (whenever the world turns right-side up again), and YouTube videos: Women Who Code, Women in Data, and Women in Analytics.

Platforms

There are many learning platforms out there and while some are free, there are ways to access paid platforms at a reduced cost.

Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning
Lynda.com recently became a part of the LinkedIn system. As part of LinkedIn's membership service you get access to the courses for around $30/month. There is another option. In many major metropolitan areas, the public library systems have partnerships with Lynda and you can access the same content for free.

Alison.com
Alison.com is another paid learning platform. Some state job centers have partnerships with Alison and you can access the content for free.

Udemy.com
Udemy.com is the last paid learning platform that I’ve tried. I’ve gotten free classes by shopping during sales and through promotional codes posted on social media.

FreeCodeCamp
A place to learn different types of coding for free. The Python Data Analysis course that I took was through a partnership between FreeCodeCamp and another service.

Google Analytics Academy
Google Analytics Academy provides free training in Google Analytics, Data Studio, and Tag Manager and a certificate in Google Analytics.

Hubspot Academy
Hubspot offers free courses and certificates in marketing, SEO, sales, etc.

I hope that these resources are helpful to wherever you are in your professional journey.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge