My summer of love with Lynda

Photo from Ruben Ulset

At the beginning of the year I wrote a blog about how valuable the online-learning platform Coursera can be for your career. And now for what might be an even bigger love-in: Lynda.

Oh, Lynda. How did I ignore you for so long? I guess I was too busy, too caught up in my own world. But then right when I needed you, you were there.

Ok. I’m getting ahead of myself. Who or what is Lynda? Lynda is a website containing online tutorials from experts in lots of useful stuff – especially, but not limited to, software skills. UCL has bought a subscription to it, so anyone with a UCL login is able to access the site.

I’ve recently started working through some Lynda tutorials myself, and they’re great! So practical and well made, and each session is broken into bite-size chunks to make them easier to follow.

In terms of up-skilling to further your career, Lynda is a wonderful tool to have. Employers are often keen that their new recruits can hit the ground running. PhDs and research roles will equip you with a range of competencies, but if you think your target job requires skills you’re currently lacking – maybe coding skills, Photoshop skills, or anything really – Lynda may be able to help you fill those gaps. And even employers who are ready and willing to train you up from scratch will appreciate the motivation demonstrated by starting your learning early.

But what if you’re not sure which skills you’ll need? This can be especially tricky if you’re thinking of entering a new field. To overcome this, Lynda has created ‘learning paths’ for different roles. These are playlists of tutorials to work through, starting from the basics upwards. So whether you want to become an Agile project manager or a music producer, or if you just think that being a Powerpoint whizz would make you more memorable at conferences, it’s worth seeing if Lynda can help you get there.

You can even put together your own learning lists. Handily, UCL’s digital education team have already made some for you, including this fab one on careers skills, ranging from CV-writing, to pitching projects and products. So if you’ve got some spare time over the summer, why not check them out, and see if you love Lynda as much as I do!