Of course education is important. Especially high quality. At least for the sake of the diploma or certificate itself 🙂
As my experience has shown, few people believe in self-education only in words. And of course in vain. For example, sitting at home with a baby for two years, I simultaneously studied at the second higher education at the Faculty of Programming and independently studied Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Premier from lessons on design forums. When I came to my first job interview, they didn’t believe me that I was able to master all this on maternity leave. And by the way, for some reason they didn’t give me a test task at all to test the power of my words. Therefore, I began to believe in the power of certificates.
My first experience was ESHKO (https://eshko.ua/). These are probably the very first distance courses that were then in Ukraine. They started with foreign languages, but then gradually grew into a bunch of other industries. My choice fell on two courses: web design and computer graphics. Both courses consisted of 16 lessons. Each lesson has its own book with printed material and homework assignments. The material was well presented. Every month you need to do your homework at the lesson and send it for review. Then you get feedback from the teacher. Great for beginners. In any case, I really liked it.
Further, at one of the interviews, a potential employer recommended offsite design courses to me. There I got to know Figma in more detail, and got a good knowledge of the basic principles of design, some definitions, teachers shared their experience of working with clients, difficulties and their solutions. In general, everything was ok, until these courses suddenly closed. The two "founding friends" began to divide their businesses.
After a short distance, I followed the recommendation of my colleague through links to Udemy (https://www.udemy.com/) and Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/).
First, about Coursera. I took many courses there. So many. Very 🙂 There are many different courses. And the presentation of the material is different, whether it depends on a school, university or private teaching. Lectures and practical assignments are expected. Practical tasks are checked by the same students as you. Sometimes the check is fast, sometimes you have to wait a long time. Once in the Nth course, in my opinion it was something about UX-research, they wrote to me in feedback that I am most likely a black marketer who is trying to sell or promote my product🙂 It was a practical task, to conduct a survey about my product. My product was Tamagotchi.
But in general, the service is full of good courses. I think everyone went to the UI / UX courses from Google. There was even a legend - go through all five courses and get a job at Google. I don't know where it came from, I went through two or three that were interesting to me. According to user research and usability testing.
Tired of waiting for feedback, I went to Udemy. What made me happy was the prices. This is a set of courses from people who want to share their experience. I took courses about graphics, illustration, animation, UX and React basics.
Offline learning also continued through various paid and free workshops. Basically, announcements about them appear in Facebook or LinkedIn feeds. During the pandemia, many conferences have moved to an online format. And in general, many stayed there. I think I attend 3-4 workshops a year.
Books! Books are a must have in my life. Printed. The most real. And it can be not only professional literature. Fiction perfectly helps to unload the brain and put thoughts in order no worse than the gym. I think on average there are 1-2 books per month. Sometimes just scroll through or look at the pictures :)
Why do I think education is important? First, you get to know people. Tell about yourself, about your experience. Learn from other people's experience. In some ways you agree with their work, in some ways you do not. Secondly, you go beyond your daily work. And then bring something fresh and new into it. Thirdly, it's just interesting. Get to know something new. Develop. What if you don't know something? But we always don't know anything.
So see you at the next design workshop, friends🙂 If you recognize me, don't be shy to come and get acquainted🙂
