Free courses in England

[bluebeardswife7]

Has anyone done any of these? Were they helpful? Will people laugh if I put them on my cv?

Tiny bump

Following! There’s some that look really interesting and I think could help my career, just not sure how useful they’d be!

Do you mean online courses?

Yes, they came up on my instagram feed and I tapped on them. Next thing I get a phone call from a salesperson. The course is free, but if you drop out you have to pay a cancellation fee. Just interested if they are worth doing or not.

Which courses?

They sound dodgy, sorry.

If it's IT courses - they are useful I believe and help people get into coding and software development jobs.

Have you checked the open university free courses or similar?

Free but a fee for cancelling sounds dodgy.

OU do free courses

Look at the OU/OpenLearn free courses.

I did an online "free" course through something once and you had to pay quite a chunk to get your certificate of completion at the end. They also kept promoting their monthly payments to be a member and how you would get loads of other courses for free then. I just ignored them and used my knowledge without their shitty certificate.

If a "salesperson" calls you then I bet it's the same idea.

OU do free courses. I've done some that interested me. Anyone that wants me to pay if their course is crap won't have me signing up

I’ve completed a few level 2 courses, the GDPR one has been useful as have some of the children/education ones in my volunteer role & helpful on job applications. Mine have been through local college but delivered free online. Received certificates too & completed between my Ou degree. Feedback so far has been they show initiative & interest in a subject or area.

There are a lot of level 2 courses (There are some level 3 too, but the eligibility criteria is stricter) available through your local college. They're recognised by employers. I suppose they could be helpful if you were moving into a different industry and wanted to demonstrate industry knowledge.

I did one that I saw on an ad! A level 2 course - I found it interesting, got a certificate and it will now be on my CV. I might do another as they emailed to say that you can do more. Good professional development for my role at work.

Most have a fee if you don’t complete the course if you enrol. My local college offers free level 2/3 courses in various subjects. If you don’t engage, study & submit work you may be liable to pay a £85 admin fee. I think it’s to defer time wasters as it’s funded.
OUfree/Openlearn courses are great but aren’t accredited unless you pay.

Check your local colleges or local authority adult learning provision

Don't sign up to an individual advertising free courses on Facebook or something