I miss learning like we did back in undergrad, med school and residency. I miss learning interesting concepts like how to calculate when an object will hit the ground based on the acceleration of gravity, weight of the object and distance from the contact surface. Later on, Learning in med school was so crammed that it stopped being fun and only a few subjects managed to capture my interest. Residency was hands-on learning so it was quite fun, a sort of apprenticeship.
Now that I’m officially done with pursuing an education for the sake of a career I have come full circle to want to learn again, for the sake of knowledge, personal development and yes, career advancement.
Some want to learn more about spirituality, some about exercise & diet, others about finance and yet others about computer science; learning about art or developing cooking skills, learning how to work on a car or design a 3D product with a 3D printer.
Invest in Yourself with Online Learning
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the online world has become overpopulated with information. It’s hard to find what we want and it’s even harder to find things written which are in depth enough to be worthwhile. The internet is filled with quick, short, hectic, schizophrenic web pages and videos which are just short enough to appeal to the cell phone and Facebook crowd.
Not much in terms of efficacy can beat a great professor with a sensible student:teacher ratio, with auditory as well as visual learning inputs. But it’s not always easy to find such classes/courses. For those who are looking for something nearly as good online I have compiled a few sites and resources to advance your learning for whatever the hell purpose.
What’s Your Reason For Wanting To Further Your Learning?
You may be bored to death of medicine and want to just learn to bring your mind back to life. Perhaps reading books just doesn’t do it for you.
You may want to pursue something outside of medicine and need to learn a little more to get your foot in the door. Maybe you want to start baking on the side but don’t know how to bake with profits in mind. You may want to start your own exercise/diet website but don’t know how to get started.
You may want to start selling a product online and need to learn everything from marketing to setting up your own e-commerce site. So let’s get started.
Photography For Beginners offers a free course on how to get started shooting awesome photographs with your camera.
Topics include:
- Know your camera
- Understand your camera
- Composition guidelines
- Common beginner mistakes
This course won’t cost you a single penny. It’s free. I know people who pay very good money to get this same information. Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments below.
Sotheby’s Institute Of Art has various art related online courses. This one has to do with valuation of art. The course is available only at a specific time and runs 6 weeks long.
The course will set you back about $1,500. I couldn’t find a way to deduct this on your taxes but perhaps you are more creative than I am.
Week 1: An Introduction to Collecting
Week 2: Introduction to the Art Market
Week 3: The Value of Art
Week 4: Validation
Week 5: The Rise of Pop Art
Week 6: Opportunities, Challenges and Risks
SCORE is a nonprofit organization which is dedicated to helping small businesses succeed. They have various workshops and mentorship programs.
This particular webinar focuses on how to secure financing options for your small business.
As far as I can tell the course is free but I didn’t go through the registration process to find out. At most it will cost $70 based on other courses I have seen by SCORE.
UCLA, just like many other major colleges/universities offers online courses through their extension programs. Rest assured you will pay a hefty chunk of change to take these courses but you won’t be disappointed.
This extension course will set you back nearly $15,000, which covers 17 courses. So that’s quite a lot of classes for that money.
John Schaub offers multiple online courses or home study courses as he calls it mostly related to real estate. Here is a full list:
-Negotiation for Real Estate Investors
-Generating Cash Flow 24/7
-Buying Real Estate Options
-Buying and Selling with Owner Financing
-Using Lease Options to Buy & Sell Property
-The Business of Buying and Selling Houses
-Buying Property from Owners and Lenders in Distress
-Making Money With Investors
-Retirement Investing
This particular course has the following outline and will set you back $149. His reputation is solid so it’s a worthwhile course to take:
– Learn to Manage without working weekends
– The 10 Never Break Rules of Management
– Buying the house to attract the tenant you want
– Marketing to the perfect tenant
– Selecting and signing up great tenants
– Responding to emergencies
– Raising rents regularly and reasonably
– Getting rid of unwanted tenants – without evicting
– Avoiding landlord burnout.
Udacity helps you get a mini-degree or a nanodegree as they call it. Their courses are mostly technology based and train you for a new career in tech. This particular course is for app development in the android operating system.
The fees are reasonable, $199 per month until you get your degree or until you cancel the course.
Coursera is a site that brings together a bunch of online courses from various institutes. Their catalog is pretty impressive.
I tried to look up prices but couldn’t find it … shady if you ask me but the site has some street cred so it’s worth looking into.
This course is a 5-course study series. The study outline is quite impressive. It runs only during specific times and since it’s several weeks long I’m sure you would need to dedicate a few hours a week to it.
Udemy has an impressive repertoire of online courses. A lot more accessible and a lot more simple than anything else I’ve come across. The courses also seem to be a lot more reasonably priced.
This course has to do with motion typography, basically developing moving images for advertising, for videos or film credits etc. It would be a great intro for anyone wanting to learn 2D or 3D animation. Oh yea, it only costs $15, sweet.
It has a pretty impressive curriculum, so check it out if you’re interested. You can find a complete list of various courses here.
Khan Academy offers courses for free so you can’t really argue with the price.
I found this online course for electrical engineering with multiple lectures on the topic. But if you fancy something else the Khan Academy also offer astronomy, physics, economics and entrepreneurship.
I am going to give one more honorable mention for for udemy and their eCommerce development through WordPress.
Again, for only a $15 investment you can learn how to setup your own website to sell whatever it is you want to sell.
Next, you are going to want to divert traffic to your site so you will need to learn about advertising, here is a course for that on udemy as well.
The website is a little tough to navigate but this one particular course caught my interest. It helps you learn and since learning is what we’re talking about then why not get a lecture on it by an expert.
I believe the cost is a little under $300 which is reasonable because he lays out everything there is to know about learning more effectively, retaining knowledge better etc.
*I am taking this course myself, I will let you know how it is once I’m done with it.
I’m running out of juice so here is a list of a few other online courses, you can research the details yourself and see if it interests you.
How to start your own Podcast. No price listed (seriously, why do people do this?)
How to make various chocolate desserts by Sur La Table. Price is only $30.
3D Animation by The Art Institute. Price not listed.
Various woodworking courses by Craftsy. Prices range from $20-30.
My Own Courses
I wrote this post initially back in 2016 and because of courses like this, I have learned how to put together my own course.
I now have a full listing on my Shop where other physicians have learned how to do some of the things that I’ve had success in. From telemedicine to healthcare consulting to being a digital nomad physician.
Do you have something that you’re good at? Perhaps something that you could teach others?