Gone are the days when getting an admission, a challenge in itself, was sufficient. Look around, you know a friend who is preparing for an in-vogue course popularly called CFA, aka Chartered Financial Analyst, or someone learning to code or a friend-of-a-friend learning French. There you are wondering, what to do?
These courses, no doubt enhance candidacy and give the resume an edge over others; but more importantly, they are testimonials of your sincere interest. Your choice of a course shows that you are genuinely interested in learning more about that subject.
And that is why you should take up one, besides studying in college.
Which course should you study?
At least a month long, typically such courses are certifications in a subject or area of study and can even run for multiple months or years.
Let, what others are doing encourage you to think about expanding your knowledge, but making sure that it doesn’t drive the decision of choosing the course you want to pursue.
The motivation here is your interest. Usually, by the end of the first year, you would have a broad idea of what the rest of college curriculum is going to be like; also you are aware of the subjects you like or perhaps, don’t like. These things should influence your decision of what course to study. The chances are you will stick to it, maybe even sign up for an advance version after that.
Added benefit: if later on, you find that you don’t like the college curriculum, these short term courses help you carve out a plan B in career building. Take up a course in another subject that you find interesting, prior to researching the future career prospects of such a course.
Where are these courses available?
In the era of hyper-connectivity, a very slim chance that you do not have a smartphone nor an internet connection, where most of such courses are imparted online. Most likely, if you decide to sign up to take up a certificate course, it is going to be online. But, let this not undermine the joy of meeting new people virtually; learn what are the different backgrounds and experiences with which people are learning the same subject as you!
Having said this then, what are the reasons to not take up a course?
There are many classmates still who decide to not take up an added course, why so? Besides varying personal reasons that are not easy to decipher, it is mostly the lack of knowing the importance of learning and the lack of motivation to commit to learning. Lucky you! You won’t be one of those!
For more information and advice regarding such courses, here is an article that you can read up on!
* How to stay motivated during a course?
