Youngsters take to online courses to enhance skills, improve job prospects

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 29

As the academic burden on students lightens, owing to the closure of educational institutes for the past nearly three and a half months, most of the youngsters have taken to improving their skills through online, short duration certificate courses being conducted professionally through various portals.

While the Swayam portal being run by the MHRD is popular among students as it offers a variety of over 500 free courses with lectures designed by IIT professors, there are others who have been following international and national portals, including Udemy and upGrad.

Many professionals who are already into jobs or business too have been upgrading their skills in their job prospects, and boosting their efficiency and creativity in the field. A continuous upgrade of knowledge is what almost all upcoming fields demand as we have to showcase new techniques in marketing, says Gurkirpal S GP, who is pursuing a course in digital marketing. The users share that the contacts that they build up using the online course portals and the chat room discussions too are helping them widen their horizons.

Likewise, a first year Computer Science and Engineering student from DAVIET, Shriya recently got selected in Women Techmakers Engineering Fellows programme which is sponsored by Google and she is taking online classes for the same. She shares that the programme is conducted by an organisation named —Talent Sprint based in Hyderabad.

It is a scholarship programme and every selected girl gets a scholarship of Rs 2 lakh from Google for which there is an entrance test that has four rounds-aptitude test, English communication, python programming and interview after which she got a selection mail. This programme is conducted for only first year girl students. There were a total of 15,000 girls all over India who filled the application form, out of which only 126 made it in the programme and Jalandhar-based Shriya made through.

SPEAKING OUT

When Covid happened, I, as an event manager, suffered a huge setback. I decided to evolve my business by upgrading my skills in digital marketing. I did an online course and it has really helped me. Gurkirpal S GP, Founder, F9 Media Company

The Google course that I pursued recently will go on for two years. Though most of it will be done online, I may have to go to Hyderabad, too, when situation improves. It is helping me gain practical knowledge. Shriya, student of DAVIET

Though I am into event management, I still took a one-month online course on nutrition from a portal. It helped me to adopt a healthy lifestyle and make items such as beet root a part of my diet. Navjot Sidhu, event manager

I am pursuing a course in Java programming. It has helped me develop my computer skills and improve content of my YouTube page. I intend to start my own portal during graduation. Gunreet Kaur, school student

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