[GIVEAWAY] Win 1 seat to a Multi-Day Smartsheet University course

John Primeaux

I have tried many different professions, including the military, transportation, retail management, food service, and for the past several years, education. I was never quite happy with the work/life balance I got from any of these positions, as I rarely got to spend time with my family after work, because I was either too weary physically, or mentally to do so. Which leads me to explain why I left education.

I spent 9 hard years as an educator, trying to find the best way to meet the needs of those students and the standards required by administration, only to realize that my family values were being slowly taken from me. I had to do something, and at over 50 years old, my options were slim. I had some valuable learning from Purdue University Computer Science school from 1984 to 1987, but no degree in that field. So, I searched online for something that would provide some thorough learning. I found it in Codecademy online learning platform.

Being a former teacher, I have seen many different types teaching methods and learning strategies. By far, my favorite course, bar none, would have to be one of the classes I took through that online learning platform: Data Science. Their learning platform allows the student to move along at their pace and provides opportunity for the learner to correct their mistakes after relearning the lesson. I was pretty good at coding but would get discouraged when I struggled to make it work. This was what kept me going. It was the accountability I needed to complete the course.

Codecademy offers several professional pathway courses that teaches through real-world project-based strategies. The cost was minimal, so I purchased the pro-plan for two years and completed several professional courses in Data Science (Python, SQL, R, Jupyter Notebook, GitHub). It gave me precisely what I needed to make the change, late in life, into a field that I should have been in since the 1980s.

Exactly two months upon the completion of my last professional certification, I was offered a position as a Data Analyst for a large CDMO Biotechnology company. It offered me the perfect opportunity to leave education on my terms and in my timeline. It also provided me a hybrid position, allowing me to spend 2 days at home working. This was a deal-winner for me.

Erin Kim

In high school I took an environmental science class. I loved every minute of it-- since I love the outdoors!

Kaled

My favorite was an ultrasonic inspection course. Loved diving into how this inspection method keeps equipment, planes, and factories and many other things safe. It’s like being a detective, but in steel and many other materials. Really eye-opening to see how crucial these inspections are🌟

JMacMillan

One of my favourite courses I have taken was Biology for Engineers in university. I really enjoyed this course because traditionally, engineering professionals do not take or work with biology but they trialled this course with our year to include it for future years. Because this course was new, I had no expectations or preconceived notions which allowed me to be fully open minded.

The course allowed us to look at biology with an engineering lens; mechanics of why fish swim in a school, why shark skin is the way it is, and how nature works so efficiently. We then took that to look at manmade systems to investigate how we could use nature as influence to make our own systems more efficient.

this course offered a unique view on systems efficiency which I had no thought of before which I thoroughly enjoyed and to this day, it is my favourite university course ever taken, and very high on my list of all courses taken over the years.

A.J.

This was a very, very long time ago as an undergrad at St. Louis University, I took a theology class called "Mary and Her Sisters" which was all about the various women named Mary in the Bible. Most interestingly, maybe, was that it was taught by a Rabbi. Who'd have guessed that one?

Carly Chaput

One of the last courses I took in my degree program was called Environmental Field Methods. Leading into this course we were required to have completed all of the other usual science courses, biology, chemistry, physics, etc., so I assumed this course would simply build on those pre-requisites. To an extent, that was true, but more importantly, this class was focused on the real-life logistics of trying to run studies out in the field. It's easy to drop a sensor into a tank of water and track temperature fluctuations in a lab for a couple weeks, but what happens when you need to put that sensor in the shallows of a tourist destination beach in the middle of spring break? I can tell you that our class collected a lot fewer sensors than we deployed. All of the studies that we conducted during this course felt like a set-up for failure as we experienced everything from algae growing over a tiny solar panel meant to keep our sensors powered, tourists taking our sensors home as souvenirs, animals chewing through "protective" casings, and a few of us even experienced a trip to the campus nurse as we discovered weird rashes after a day of collecting water samples from a pond. The class truly taught us to consider variables in ways that most of us never had, adapt to challenges that none of us were accustomed to considering, and embrace the less pristine conditions of science outside of the lab. Years after this class, as a PM, I woke up to a phone call at 3am letting me know that an intoxicated driver had just driven through the entrance of a store we had nearly finished renovating, and it was like deja vu to showing up for an early low tide to find a 6ft deep hole in the exact place I had buried a sensor. Most classes teach you the right way to do things, but this one taught us how to fail constantly, and I can say with confidence, the teachings were much more memorable.

A. Fout

One of my favorite courses was when I was a high school science teacher and I was able to go to a weekend full of courses on how to bring the "outdoors" into the classroom. All the courses were very interactive and interesting. We even got to simulate an archeological dig at an old farmstead! It was so cool!

I've been working in the chemical industry for 19 years since leaving teaching, but the idea that learnings can be interactive and fun has never left my mind. I always try to apply this to the trainings I now lead. 😁

Nicole Aceto-Lang

Any time there is a clear learning objective, content to support multiple learning styles, with a consistent reward/feedback system throughout the content, I am a happy learner.

I took a hybrid English Honors class in college, where this was a key theme. We studied learning styles; researching using online learning platforms such as Coursera and similar methods. We then applied that learning to both a group project and an individual paper on a specific topic (slow food, in this case). Ongoing discussions, group challenges, and feedback sessions kept things engaging. While there were multiple mediums, we also found varied perspectives which made the outcomes interesting.

kowal

The best course I took ever in my entire professional life is: https://online.yale.edu/courses/science-well-being

The Science of Well being helped me to setup a proper mindset and concentrate on the most important aspects of what really matters in private and professional life.

Why was it great? First of all the instructor was doing amazing job, the content helped me understand what makes people happy and feel good about themselves. The course is somehow eye opening.

Plus it's free :)

Alison Clancy

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/428512#Comment_428512

This is so cool @kowal! Going to check this out.

kowal

@Alison Clancy i was 100% sure you already knew it. It was free for public when Covid started just to help with mental crisis.

Kelly Moore

This is a hard question! I am a lifelong learner. I've been struggling for a few days now trying to narrow it down. For those StrengthFinder fans, learning is my #1 strength (followed by collector, which means I collect trivia so put me in the CashCab with you!). For classes, any class with hands-on application is going to be a favorite. Academically, it was my Synthetic Organic chemistry class which is why I'm a chemist. In SmartsheetU, the Bridge class was one of my favs. Currently, since I've taken up birding, I'm in a birding class and every weekend we go on fieldtrips. Beside the constant game of Marco Polo that you play with the birds (you listen to try to find them), the activity forces you to be totally present in the moment and outside in nature. For these reasons, my birding class is my favorite class.

kelceyg

My favorite course(s) was my advanced and AP English classes I took in high school. I have always loved reading, but these classes gave me a great love for literature. My English teachers were absolutely wonderful and taught me critical reading skills that I believe are fundamental to being a life long learner, as well as have helped form me into the person I am today. While I mostly read for entertainment purposes today, it was because of those teachers that I have experienced many great novels and found passion for understanding stories.

jodyh

My favorite course this year was one we set up in office last week with Smartsheet. Our trainer (shout out to Alyson Englebrecht) was professional, funny, knowledgable, and took on all our questions excitedly. We were able to customize the course to our participants (ranging from first timers, to intermeidate, to PMs looking for a solution) and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. For an Smartsheet junkie like myself, it was great to see new ways of using the product and to have a refresher on a few tips/tricks I had forgotten.

Claire Vita

I am a learning enthusiast! I love to take classes and learn new skills, even if just for the challenge. Working in the education space, I get to think a lot about the classes that have made me the person I am today.

By far, the most impactful class of my life would be my AP Art History course I took in high school. It taught me not only the about how visual culture has changed through thousands of years of human expression, but also how to look at a picture critically. During a time where our lives are filled with images, art, and media trying to influence us, I believe having an understanding of the history of visual culture is essential for safely navigating the world!