General Assembly: Advance in your Career for 1 Hour per Month

I can not be the only one that thinks my phone is somehow always listening to me… Hear me out… If you find yourself having a conversation with a friend that you are looking for a new facial moisturizer, then the next time you go on your phone, there are ads for Target and Sephora moisturizers… Facebook ads always seem to be hearing what I’m talking about, even if I don’t type anything into my phone about it! Usually these ads are meaningless to me- clothes, beauty products, new kitchen items- things I definitely have enough of, and definitely do not need to be spending my money on.

Although, recently, I was browsing through my LinkedIn Premium courses- and the internet must have been listening to me here, too- but this time, it was actually for the good! I stumbled upon an ad for General Assembly FREE skills workshops. Yes, you read that correctly- FREE.

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General Assembly is an online* learning platform, created by Jake Schwartz to bridge the gap between needed career skills and the associated education, at a low cost. The best part, the courses are always adapting to the relevant times- for example, they currently have courses on how to network virtually and “Job Searching during “Difficult Times.” They also stay up to date with in-demand job skills, are easily accessible and offered at all times of the day, and the best part- all taught by industry professionals!

General Assembly offers free one-off courses (typically introductory) and paid boot camp (quick learnings), part-time courses and full-time (12 week courses), so there are options for everyone’s schedules, needs and skill levels. The main overarching topics that General Assembly offers courses in are: Coding, Software Design, Data, UX Design, Marketing, but also have other topics, including career development and Product Management. I’m sure you can find something that relates to your interests to help develop your skills on this educational platform.

In addition to educational resources, General Assembly also offers co-working spaces for professionals all over the World- from North America to Europe to Asia and Australia, on their over 30 campuses Worldwide — where they typically offer in-person courses and dialogues. Additionally, when you graduate from a short- or long-term course, you have access to their diverse alumni network and they have connections to over 19,000 hiring partners. A great perk!

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I currently work in healthcare business analytics, and thought these free courses would be a good way to diversify myself and learn about other skills that are related, but not necessary for my position. My aim is to take one to two courses per week that fit into my schedule. Here are my general take-aways General Assembly as a whole, from the course I took this week on User Experience Design.

1. Very well organized. This course was outlined nicely in the beginning, and used simple slides throughout. They were neat and short, yet got the point across. I was able to take-away the main points from the slides and then take notes on what the speaker was saying. This kept me engaged and not bored.
2. Instructor had a lot of knowledge and has been actively working in the field for many years. This was the biggest perk of this course to me. The instructor was able to discuss how she entered into this niche field, what training she had previous, what she would recommend and what recruiters in the field look for. This background was valuable to me. I did not just take the course to gain more interest in the topic, but maybe I noticed that I could really see myself pursuing this as a career- in that sense, this aspect of the course made it stand out against others. They did not just teach me the facts about the work or projects involved, but also gave me insight on how to get involved for myself.
3. Includes exercises for you to try yourself and then discussion after. This was definitely helpful for me because it gave me a chance to see how my skills would translate to this line of work. Many of these introductory courses are meant to help people see if they would like to transition into a new career path (and then possibly take the paid-short or long courses to gain an in-depth field training through General Assembly), in addition to gaining general knowledge.
4. Gave attendees a “challenge” that was strung through the entire 3-hour course. The challenge definitely kept me engaged and exemplified how I would see myself performing this work from start-to-finish in the real world. It allowed me to see the time commitment of each step in the process and see which I struggled at or excelled in. I would say the biggest highlight of the challenge for me was having the real world application of the discussion topics and learnings. It gave me the opportunity to also take examples from my every-day life here-on-out and apply the learnings and processes to them.
5. The course recording was emailed to participants after the session and available to re-watch for 2 weeks. This was a great feature for me because some of the time slots offered I’m not available the entire time. This allowed me to watch a portion and then hop-off when needed and be able to review the material after. They also sent out a survey after asking about concerns or improvements, which I appreciated.

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In general, viewing presentations and courses outside of those offered internally by your organization can be valuable. It allows you to gain a alternative perspective on presentation styles, observe any other learning processes that you may be more keen to, and also network and see learn about others’ field experience and career path. If you do not want to attend these introductory courses for the content, I would definitely take at least one for these non-material take-aways.

I will continue writing about the learnings from each of the courses I take over the next couple weeks and I initially am very fond of these free introductory courses that they offer.

*Footnote: in current times, all of their courses are offered online in light of the Coronavirus Pandemic. During other times, courses are offered online and in person in their hub- cities, including but not limited to: London, Singapore, NYC, LA, Sydney.