Ask five people why they want to learn something new and you will probably get five completely different answers. One person wants a better job. Another has been thinking about starting a small business. Someone else simply wants a hobby that involves more than scrolling through their phone every evening.
That is what makes online learning interesting. It does not have to lead to a dramatic career change or another formal qualification. Sometimes you just want to get better at something, satisfy your curiosity, or see whether an interest could become something more.
The course library at New Skills Academy reflects that mix rather well. There are courses connected to traditional professional development, but there are also plenty of subjects that you might choose simply because you have always wanted to learn them.
You Could Start With Your Career
There is a fairly practical way to browse an online course library: open a few job adverts for roles you would like and pay attention to the skills that keep appearing.
Maybe employers repeatedly ask for stronger Excel knowledge. Perhaps you work in a small business and want to understand digital marketing, HR or bookkeeping instead of relying on somebody else every time those subjects come up.
New Skills Academy covers areas including business, computing, finance, sales and marketing, administration and personal development. Its wider catalogue also includes education, hospitality, health and safety and other work-related subjects.
You do not necessarily need to reinvent your career. Learning one useful skill can make your current job easier or help you feel more prepared when another opportunity appears.
Or Forget About Work for a Moment
Not every hour spent learning needs to improve your CV.
This is probably one of the more appealing parts of browsing New Skills Academy. Alongside professional courses, there is a substantial vocational and hobbies section covering interests such as arts and crafts, cookery, photography and other practical subjects. The broader catalogue also stretches into animal care, beauty, fitness, horticulture, languages and writing.
A hobby course can be worthwhile even if you never earn a penny from it.
You might finally learn more about garden design because you enjoy working outdoors. Perhaps photography has been sitting on your “one day” list for years. You could improve your knowledge of animal care because you own pets, or take a language course before a future trip.
There is something refreshing about learning without having to justify it as a career investment.
Then Again, Hobbies Have a Habit of Growing
The line between “something I enjoy” and “something I could do professionally” is not always as clear as it seems.
Someone starts baking for friends and eventually wonders whether people would pay for it. A photography enthusiast begins taking family portraits. Someone interested in beauty, gardening or fitness starts thinking about offering a service.
New Skills Academy has a dedicated new career course category built around this idea, with subjects including photography, floristry, aromatherapy, baking and other areas that could potentially develop from personal interests into marketable skills.
This is where New Skills Academy can be useful as a low-pressure starting point. You can learn more about a subject before deciding how seriously you want to pursue it.
A course cannot tell you whether a new business or career will succeed, of course. What it can do is help you move beyond casually liking something and start understanding it properly.
The Practical Question Is Whether You Have Time
Most people can think of something they would like to learn. Finding several free hours every Tuesday evening is considerably harder.
Online courses solve part of that problem because there is no classroom timetable to work around. New Skills Academy says its training can be accessed from internet-enabled devices and studied flexibly, allowing learners to stop and continue around their existing schedules. Its courses are CPD approved, and tutor support and verifiable qualifications are also available.
That makes learning easier to fit into ordinary life. Twenty minutes during a quiet evening may not feel like much, but repeated regularly, it adds up.
The interesting thing about New Skills Academy is that you do not need to arrive with a five-year plan. You can start because you want stronger professional skills, because you are curious about another career, or simply because learning something new sounds more enjoyable than another evening spent watching television.
Sometimes a new skill stays a hobby. Sometimes it becomes useful at work. And occasionally, it takes you somewhere you had not originally planned to go.