Udemy, the Academy for You
Want to start a new career or learn a new skill? Udemy is the online learning academy for you! Udemy offers over 4,000 on-demand, online courses on leadership, management, coding, design, marketing, IT operations, data science, project management, human resources, sales, accounting, and productivity. And it’s all free with your MCPL library card!
Udemy courses are mostly business focused. There are courses on the usual productivity tools, like Microsoft Word and Excel, as well as introductory tech classes on subjects like HTML and WordPress.
Udemy also covers the softer, more social side of business with courses on public speaking, running productive meetings, and managing teams. I just started a course on public speaking to help me prepare for a presentation on podcasting that I’m giving at a library conference.
One can also find very specialized courses like CompTIA A+ and PLC Programming from Scratch. There’s an entire section, with a half dozen sub categories, focused on just data science. Some of these are so specialized I don’t even understand the course titles!
There’s also a personal development section in Udemy that includes language courses, life skills from painting to personal finance, and stress management courses related to mindfulness, meditation, and other techniques.
The videos offered by Udemy are on-demand, so you can start them whenever it’s convenient. Each course is broken up into smaller modules, making it easy to dip into a course for 30 minutes and pick it up later where you left off. Courses sometimes include supplementary material, such as practice tests or lists of questions to help you reflect on what you learned. Don’t worry though, there’s no final grade, just a certificate of completion.
Udemy is free with your MCPL library card. However, you’ll also need to create a free Google or Microsoft account to login. Udemy uses your name to populate certificates of completion and your email address to reach you if you need assistance.​ Udemy stores name and email address only to provide you with service and does not share or sell this data.
So, if you’re looking to start a new career, boost your skills, or enhance your personal development, take a look at Udemy and make your goals a reality.