January 28, 2020 Skills empower people to easily find their targeted jobs or dream jobs. It provides you with a tool so that you can trade your services into a monthly pay and allowance that we call salary. We define skills as the ability to do something in order to accomplish a specific goal. Enhancing skills is crucial when you want to advance in a job and career.
Use your free time to study new skills or review existing competencies. For example, if you’re a graphic artist with an intermediate knowledge in Adobe Photoshop and GIMP, you could watch video tutorials and read ebooks. You can practice the program while watching the tutorial. If you’re working full time, your free time could be the free hours before or after the shift, and weekends. If you’re working as a freelancer, your free time is longer and could be 4 to 6 hours before or after the freelance work.
Study through distance learning schools
Distance learning schools or adult learning schools comprise a division of some major public universities of the Philippines. They might use web-based modules, tests, media, and physical tests for academic programs that need lab work and field practice.
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International MOOCs/ Distance Learning Schools |
Description |
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There’s a fee for admission and courses |
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A 100 Php fee for admission and $25 for foreign nationals. |
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Polytechnic University of the Philippines - Open University System |
There’s a fee (100 Php per unit). They offer undergraduate and graduate programs. For reference, visit here. |
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There’s a tuition fee for courses such as Education, Nursing, Public Admin, Social Work and Criminology. |
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There’s a fee for admission and courses. Physical appearance could be required for field practice and laboratory work. |
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VSU offers distance education in agriculture |
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UNP offers an MA in Education, Nursing, Public Administration, Social Work and Bachelor of Science in Criminology |
Study through MOOCs
MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses are websites that offer free or paid short, long and diploma courses. You begin by signing up and choosing a course. These MOOCs could be completely free, partially free, and free training but with a paid diploma. The pros of using online courses are that they provide you with flexible means of online education by using only a laptop and an internet, you can study and earn certificates/diplomas without commuting to a physical school.
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International MOOCs/ Distance Learning Schools |
Type |
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Free training/Paid certificates |
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Free training/ paid certificates |
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Totally free training and free certificates. They rely on volunteers, donations and support from organizations. |
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Free training and badge |
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Paid training and certificate |
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Free for 200 courses but without a certificate. Nanodegrees are paid. |
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Paid training and certificate |
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Free training |
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Free training and free certificates. They have also a donation page. |
Attend seminars, classes and workshops
Seminars, classes, and workshops are usually short-termed courses that are either free (totally free and partially free) or paid. If paid, the fees could cover food and drinks, modules and trainers fee. Workshops are timebound and they only exist on a specified date. Each of these seminars is either conducted by training companies or by government agencies such as TESDA. Earning a certificate from these seminars and workshops can expand your skills, experiences and they look great for resumes too. They comprise the following themes or categories:
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Category |
Participating organizations and source |
Name of event |
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Carpentry |
Carpentry or Furniture making |
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Crafts |
Basic leather crafting, candle making, cardholder making |
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Graphic design |
Graphics theory and graphic software usage. |
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Food production |
Making of bread, doughnut, essential oil, macaron |
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Hospitality and Tourism |
Certificate in Basic Culinary arts Events Management Services NC II |
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Health |
Basic life support and first aid training |
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Information technology |
Arduino training, web development, graphic design |
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Money matters |
Forex trading Financial advice |
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Test reviews |
IELTS |
Practice and learn with a tomato timer
Getting good at skills doesn’t happen overnight or the following day. If you’re learning Japanese and expect to be fluent after 3 months, then you’ll be setting up for failure or procrastination. Your body uses hormones (dopamine) that provide focus and drive, unfortunately, it’s limited, and when it runs out, you can lose motivation and will. One of the best ways to avoid procrastination is to use a Pomodoro technique which is also a time management method. Pomodoro is an Italian word for tomato.
