Creative writing

Investment

Coding

Graphic design

Social media marketing

Sitting at home, counting your blessings and streaming Netflix endlessly might get boring after a point. Why not utilise this time to learn something? With all of us struggling to figure out what to do with our lives to keep ourselves from repeated anxiety attacks at the state of the world, engrossing yourself with an online course could do the trick. YouTube always has videos of people trying to share their knowledge in an effort to teach but if you want to take things a tad bit more seriously, there are multiple platforms, paid or unpaid, that are doling out lessons on every imaginable topic under the sun. Hobbies aside, one can even get certified in a skill that could give them the leg up they need at their workplace. With options like Courseera, Skillshare, and Udemy that have a plethora of options to choose from, finding a suitable course shouldn’t be too difficult. Plus, it is said that doing something for 21 days straight could make it into a habit. Here are a few courses you could turn into a habit...

Language

Instrument

Photography

Shutterstock

Shutterstock

Shutterstock

Shutterstock

Shutterstock

Shutterstock

Shutterstock

Almost every job in the market right now tests you on your social media presence and consider it an added bonus if you happen to be savvy. From the most basic of businesses to the most widespread and successful one, a digital footprint is increasingly becoming necessary and unavoidable. And if you happen to be that person, you are travelling straight to the boss’s favourite book. Running ads on social media platforms, understanding the mediascape and also grasping content strategy and its analysis, all fall under social media marketing. From running a business on Instagram to controlling your brand’s appearance on Facebook to influencer marketing, learn the A-Z of social media marketing and leverage the digital scape that we are having to immerse ourselves in, lockdown or otherwise.

Our picks:

• Berkeley Institute of California @edx.org
• Facebook Blueprint
• Northwestern
• Kellogg School of Management

Who hasn’t harboured a secret dream of slaying on the guitar on stage or just letting loose on the violin. Maybe you reached the stage of buying the instrument and tinkering with it before losing yourself to work or maybe you played really well at one point of time but no longer remember the right chords. There is no better time to dust off that instrument and have a go at it. YouTube aside, there are professional courses taught by maestros you have admired who will put you on the right track.

Our Picks:

• FurtadosSchoolOfmusic.com
• SangeetVidhyalaya.com
• ShankarMahadevanAcademy.com

Before you conjure up an image of an earthy personality staring at the sky willing the universe to send some inspiration for a book, let’s clear this once and for all — a little creative writing skill never hurt anyone. Everybody should have a flair for the words, irrespective of wanting to be the greatest novelist of our times. Think work emails and the thin thread a message to a client or a colleague is balanced upon. One extra “warm” before a “regards” could change the whole ball game. So why not utilise this time to do just that? And if opening a blog or writing a book is your secret dream, there is no better time than now. Remember when the plague came to England, Shakespeare wrote King Lear.

Our picks:

• Judy Blume, Neil Gaiman, R.L. Stine, and more @masterclass.com
• Chuck Palahniuk @litreactor.com
• writersvillage.com

There are times when a design speaks louder than words. Think clever ads that don’t require a verbal message from the brand. Understand typography, colour theory, layout and get adept at software like InDesign and Photoshop to create designs for your personal and professional needs. Much like creative writing, being able to do basic designing adds a million points to your professional profile.

Our Picks:

• admecindia.co.in
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology open courses
• canva.com

You are one simple exam away to go and live in any country for a year or forever, teaching English, if you happen to know another language. Who wouldn’t need a gap year to collect themselves together once this pandemic is over? Travelling, just because you are able to and also with a purpose, becomes easier if you know the language. So why not? Also, watching movies without subtitles must have its own charm. There are way too many pros to knowing another international language for us to be listing them out. So go for it!

Our picks:

• duolingo.com
• babbel.com
• Rosetta Stone mobile app

Be it to up your Insta game and get more followers to eventually realise the “influencer” dream or to actually take a hidden passion forward, there are plenty of online photography courses that you could take. You may not be able to practise the landscape shots from your balcony or window but there are plenty and more things to document and practise with, indoors. Learn to tackle the controls of a camera or the art of framing and ‘rule of thirds’. From Nikon to Annie Leibovitz, there are interactive classes with interesting modules, which begin with understanding focus and exposure and go on to handling the camera and its many controls like white balance and scene modes to the final post-processing layers and curves, with some courses even giving you a brief peek into the world of smartphone photography.

Our picks:

• IndianInstituteOfPhotography.com
• Ami Vitale @skillshare.com
• digital-photography-school.com

For all the memes we have come across about the education system globally, most fall under the category of the utility of mathematics course work in practical life if you choose to pursue any other line of work or subject. Instead of learning to file our taxes and figure out our investments, we were taught logarithm and calculus! But, it’s not too late. Learn what kind of investments suit your lifestyle and thought process, learn to discern between how you would like to put your money in the market, whether you are a short-term investment person or you care about the long run. Learn what it means when people say “make your money work for you” by understanding the stock market. Investments are one thing every young working professional need to worry about and understand, be it saving for the future or for a short vacation.

Our picks:

• Investopedia.com
• safalniveshak.com
• upstox.com

T-shirts with “anybody can code” messages on them are actually right! Anybody really can if they put their mind to it and learning it is one of the most fun skills one can acquire. The coded world of binaries is what makes the world run and learning, even a part of it, should be an added benefit to your life. Think building your own website, or just knowing the basics of HTML, learning to communicate with a computer becoming a necessity shouldn’t be too far from the dystopian present that we seem to be fighting at this moment. And the only way to do it is by learning to code.

Our Picks:

• upgrad.com
• codeacademy.com
• codewars.com