Short
Courses
Online short courses can give you a taster or top up your skills if you have already have some experience in tech
There are lots of short courses out there, many of them online. If you’ve not worked in digital technology before the beginner courses provide a useful introduction to various areas. The advanced courses can be enough to get you work-ready if you are disciplined, motivated and work well independently.
One option is a MOOC (massive open online course). This sort of training is mostly self-driven (download the materials, watch the videos, and work at your own pace). It may not be the best option if you are not good at working on your own, although some provide access to mentors. An advantage of MOOCs is being able to fit your study around paid employment and whānau commitments. These courses tend to be affordable. Some are free but will cost you if you want an assessment and a certificate of completion.
Here are some examples:
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Free Code Camp – over 8000 tutorials across all areas of digital technology, all available for free
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Udacity – offering beginner and intermediate courses in a wide range of areas, which would take a few months to complete
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Udemy – beginners and top-up courses
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Harvard University – beginners courses, ranging from a couple of days to a couple of months
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Stanford University – introductory courses that can be completed in a number of weeks
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This site features MOOCs from a number of providers
There are also platforms offering a combination of tertiary qualifications, vendor certifications, short courses and on-the-job experience. You could start with a short course to test your interest in an area and move on to something more in-depth.
Examples include:
IT “vendors” offer courses on how to look after their systems
IT companies offer training on how to use or look after their systems. Having successfully completed this training you would be “vendor certified” to use or administer these systems. For example, to become an AWS Cloud Practitioner, a Microsoft Azure Administrator, or a Google Cloud Architect.
A number of these courses (starting with the introductions and moving to the more complex) would usually be needed before you are work-ready. Many employers consider vendor training to be a top-up to more foundational training provided by a degree; not sufficient on its own.
These courses may be provided by the vendor companies themselves, by local training companies and through some of the online platforms.