7 Free Services to Improve Your Professional Skills

Are you sitting at home getting bored during the quarantine? Wondering what to do as you’ve seen almost every TV show on Netflix?

The answer is unexpectedly simple! While everyone keeps wasting their time, you have a unique chance to learn a new skill or upgrade your existing ones. You might not find a better time for self-education than now.

Coursera

One of the largest open-content sites offering courses about everything in the world, Coursera provides 169 specializations within more than two thousand training courses. The duration of each course varies from 6 to 10 weeks.

All programs are free but if you want to get a verified course certificate, you will have to pay for it. It might actually be worth it – a certificate like this can help you get a promotion at work or, if you are looking for a job now, will give you an advantage over other potential candidates.

Main features:

• Huge choice of courses in different fields – from business analytics to graphic design

• Video lectures by high-qualified experts

• A chance to earn a certificate or degree from a leading university

Duolingo

If you’ve been dreaming about learning a second language, you’ll definitely like this site. Here, you can choose from a huge variety of languages – Duolingo currently offers 36 of them! The learning process is designed to be easy and fun for everyone. The bonus is that you can download a mobile app and make learning even more comfortable for yourself.

Main features:

• Large selection of the most common and even rare languages like Vietnamese

• Immediate grading of your exercises

• Official language tests accepted by hundreds of universities worldwide

Skillshare

This service contains tens of thousands of video lessons, which will take your creativity to the next level. Animation, graphic design, music, creative writing… and that’s not all! Such serious topics as marketing, web development, SEO and even leadership are well-explained there.

Main features:

• 2-month free trial to enjoy all the benefits

• Good quality of video courses

• Introductory video for each course and real reviews of students who have passed it

Codecademy

The best training platform in the niche of programming. The interactive courses focus on the 12 most common programming languages: Python, HTML&CSS, JavaScript, etc. The most engaging subjects are game development, neural network, web programming, computer modeling and data science.

At Codecademy, you can build and develop your coding skills as developers have never been more in-demand than nowadays.

Main features:

• Even if you are a beginner, you can start writing real code in minutes

• Students can apply their knowledge to real-world projects and do tests with tailor-made quizzes

• Momentary feedback to your code

edX

edX contains online education programs in all major subjects and disciplines from 140 top institutions, including big names like Harvard to Berkeley. With their innovative MicroMasters program, edX can help students get a degree to advance their careers and increase professional recognition worldwide.

Main features:

• 2500+ courses covering a great range of topics like Business & Management, Humanities, Data Science, Language, Computer Science, Engineering, etc.

• Learners are supported at every stage, even at entering the job market

• Online streaming of classes

Lynda

Lynda is a leading online learning platform that helps anyone learn business, software, technology and creative skills to achieve personal and professional goals. They have recently become a part of Linkedln.

Lynda courses offer information products and seminars in various areas, such as:

• Internet Marketing and Sales

• Programming

• Self-development

• Business Software and Tools

• Leadership and Management

• Web Design

Furthermore, Lynda explains how to work with some of the most popular office software like Excel, Photoshop, Wordpress and iOS/Swift. It’s a great chance to finally understand how to use these tools productively.

Main advantages:

• Free month access to their library

• Learning at a convenient time for you from your mobile phone or laptop

• Verified course certificate after successful passing of a course

• All your education is based on personalized needs

• Tutorials in five languages

My Own Business

All programs here are dedicated to doing business. Their goal is to teach you how to start a business or, if you already have one, how to grow it. Courses are provided by Santa Clara University located in Silicon Valley, the world-famous center of innovations.

Main advantages:

• World’s leading provider of free online education for entrepreneurs

• Courses at your own pace without the constraints of weekly deadlines

• A brief preview of a course content to see if it fits you

Conclusion

Nowadays, with the power of the Internet we can master any skill we want without even leaving the house. During the quarantine, self-education is extremely relevant as we have to be at home.

We hope that our top-seven list will be useful, and you will find something suitable for you.

Stay safe and productive!

Your Bitrix24 team