Staying productive with free learning tools

STAYING PRODUCTIVE DURING QUARANTINE: LEARN AND UPSKILL

Exam season is over soon (or already over depending on your university) and you’re going to be stuck at home for a while. It’s easy to fall back and take a long break to reward yourself after the exam struggle is over. However, after some time, being stuck at home and doing nothing all day takes a toll on the mind. If you’re looking to stay productive during quarantine, here are some resources you might want to try out:

FutureLearn

The Australian Trade and Investment Commission has partnered with FutureLearn in a campaign to provide free online courses for all Australians. Though this campaign was most likely intended for laid off workers to upskill, others should also have access to their online courses to learn new skills during quarantine.

Check out their courses for the “Study with Australia” campaign here.

Online learning platforms

Online learning platforms are aware that people stuck at home has led to an increasing interest in online courses. As such, most have started offering free courses and resources to invite new learners. Here is a list of commercial online learning platforms (among many others) you should check out:

Skillshare

Skillshare offers a wide range of courses and free premium subscriptions for a limited time for new users. They are also known to partner with influencers and YouTubers to offer free premium memberships for a few months if you register with their links. Check out Skillshare and get a premium free trial.

Udemy

Udemy is an online learning platform that has also started offering free courses due to the pandemic. Note that not all of their courses are free. Check out their free courses.

Coursera

Coursera offers free learning resources during COVID-19 and is a partner of large companies such as Google and IBM. Check if your university is partnered by clicking the “For University and College Students” on the banner on top of this page.

edx

edx is very heavily focused on hard skills and academic courses, from business management and finance to the arts and natural sciences. View their courses here.

Insidesherpa

Insidesherpa provides virtual experience programs, some of which require payments, but some of which are free. These virtual experience programs let you experience what it feels like to be an employee at a certain company. Some examples of programs offered by Insidesherpa are the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Latham & Watkins Virtual Experience program. You are allowed to put these programs as extracurricular experiences to polish your CV. View their programs here. 

LinkedIn Learning

The range of courses in LinkedIn Learning is not only limited to hard skills but also includes soft skills, such as how to ace a job interview or how to network better online. You can include courses you’ve completed in LinkedIn Learning directly in your LinkedIn profile, which will boost your employability and skill credibility. Visit: LinkedIn Learning.

MOOCs

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is particularly useful if you’re looking to get into a new field of study, or you’re just about to apply for university. MOOCs allow you to experience what it’s like to learn a particular field of study. Many universities partnered with a variety of online learning platforms to offer MOOCs for prospective students. That being said, MOOCs are great platforms to learn and understand the academic standards if you’re interested in learning a skill unrelated to your degree.

Check out MOOCs for various academic fields offered by Australian universities here.

Others

Check with your university if they partner with any online learning platforms or provide free online resources for you. Many universities around the globe have partnered with online learning platforms to offer their students online courses for free.

There are also other “hidden” resources available for free, which are harder to find for most of us. For example, freecodecamp.org is a great web-based learning platform, and there are quality playlists of tutorial videos on YouTube offered in various fields for free, from graphic design and photography to health and fitness tutorials.