For many, the journey towards education ended after attending high school, college, or a trade school. After finishing school, the next step was to apply for a job and begin a career. Some professions and industries require annual or bi-annual courses pertinent to the industry and position, but traditionally, continuing education wasn’t something most people pursued after graduation. After all, the current path toward education traditionally doesn’t encourage lifelong learning.
Fortunately, it is the curiosity and willingness to always be learning that drives innovation and successful change. In a constantly evolving society, continuing education answers the question, “How do I stay sharp, relevant, and on top of my game?”
We shouldn’t separate education and career in our lives. Instead, they should cross over and evolve together and simultaneously. There are numerous benefits to continuing your education, even while working. Below, you’ll learn what continuing education is and why online learning courses are the solution you need for lifelong learning.
What is Continuing Education?
Continuing education and being a lifelong learner means engaging in the ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. Continued education helps individuals garner all the benefits associated with career development while enhancing social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal growth.
Continued education is the pursuit of learning that will help you excel personally and professionally. It is actively pursuing education and learning opportunities even after your academic years are over. Continuing education may look like attending workshops, joining seminars, and enrolling in classes at a university or community college either online or in person.
What are the Benefits of Continuing Education?
There’s inherent value in any education, whether it’s for your personal development or your professional development. The following are the top ten reasons to continue pursuing education throughout your life:
1) You maintain your relevance.
Continuing education helps you stay current with all industry and non-industry trends. Additional learning opportunities let you adjust your skillset and keep up with changes and new demands in your business.
2) You increase your visibility.
Lifelong learning allows you to continuously improve and advance in your job and within your field. Your ability to adapt to change will ultimately be noticed by colleagues and supervisors, meaning you may be offered more promotions or chances for improvement within your company.
3) You become more agile and adaptable.
Learning new skills keeps you more agile and adaptable to changes. Whether you’re learning something that directly relates to your job or not, training your brain to be used to learning helps it to adjust to changes more easily.
4) You increase your earning potential.
You’ll not only open more doors to career growth and positions, but your earning potential will rise too. A more educated and diversified employee has the potential to earn the company more, thereby making you more valuable and allowing you higher compensation.
5) You expand your point of view.
Think about how much your viewpoint changed while in school. With every new course, your point of view expanded, and you learned more than you previously knew. The same goes for continuing education. The more you learn, the more you can think outside the box and get a feel for the larger picture.
6) You become more creative and innovative.
Education is the key to unlocking creativity, which in turn opens the door to innovation. When you can offer more in terms of creativity and innovation, you become more of an asset to your team.
7) You become more confident.
Exuding an air of confidence throughout life can open a lot of doors and create many opportunities you may not have otherwise received. Although some people can fake confidence, you won’t have to when you continuously learn and use your newfound knowledge. After all, you’ll have a sense of accomplishment when you learn a new skill, finish a program, or complete a course, and that leads to more self-confidence overall.
8) You inspire others.
Your colleagues, friends, and family will become inspired by your drive to better yourself and your commitment to lifelong learning. You’ll also develop leadership skills as you learn more and can influence others to continue education as well.
9) You improve your lifestyle.
Sometimes continuing education begins as a way to bolster your skillset for your current job but ends up showing you other careers that you might be interested in. You’ll learn new skills, become more hirable, increase your earning potential, and become more marketable because of how many continuing education courses you have under your belt.
10) You increase your personal development.
Even if you’re beyond satisfied with your current job and lifestyle, you’re still personally developing yourself once you’ve committed to a lifestyle of learning.
Altogether, continuing education allows you to customize your learning path based on your interests and current skills and move faster and more efficiently into the career of your dreams today.
Milan Kordestani is the CEO and founder of Audo, a learn and earn platform built for the purpose of personalized career-building, complete with effective online learning courses. Audo uses A.I. to suggest in-demand skills required for your success in the career you want – all without the substantial debt that comes with a college education. Milan takes great pride in empowering, inspiring, and supporting young entrepreneurs with his innovative approach to building companies. By the age of 19, Milan had built three companies all while attending college full-time.
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