It doesn’t matter how old or young you are. Whether you just graduated from school or if you’re as old as dirt, it’s important to keep your mental synapses firing and keep learning. Besides improving your employment possibilities, studies have shown that continuous learning can also slow down or prevent dementia.
I think I’ve heard every excuse for not participating in continuous learning.
- There aren’t any schools close to where I live
- I don’t have time to commit because of work and family obligations
- I can’t afford tuition
I know there are many more excuses, but these are the top three common ones. Let me address each one.
There aren’t any schools close to where I live.
No longer a valid excuse because of the plethora of online courses that are available. If you check the course catalogue at almost any college or university, they now list when a course is available online. Usually you only need to attend the school to take your final exam or test.
I don’t have time to commit because of work and family obligations.
One of the wonderful things about online courses is that you can usually work at your own pace and there aren’t formal class times at which you need to attend. Many courses have a start and finish date and you can tailor your time to listen to lectures or do work at times that suit you, as long as you finish on time.
Other online courses have work that needs to be handed in every week, but the time during the week you complete the work is usually up to you.
I can’t afford the tuition.
You would not believe the number of online courses that are absolutely free. Here’s a challenge for you – do a web search for MOOCs – which stands for Massively Open Online Courses.
I have taken courses from universities in Moscow, Washington, California, and Australia. While most of this courses are not credit courses (unless you pay a fee) they’re a good way to figure out if a subject is interesting to you, and if your objective is simply the acquisition of knowledge, the credit isn’t the important factor – the knowledge is.
Here are some resources to get you started. Look for these course providers:
If you have a library card, check out the resources they provide as well. Many libraries provide access to language programs as well as Lynda.com courses – all of which are free if you are a member of the local library (membership does have its privilege!) Check with your library to see what resources are available.
Want to learn how to use WordPress to create a blog? How about figuring out how to use Word and Excel to its fullest? Wish you knew more about computer security, marketing strategies, or even understand the science of happiness? There are courses available for all of those and so much more. Go check it out and start learning!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Care to comment on what you just read?