You don’t have to spend a lot of money or go back to university or college to learn or improve your GIS and Geospatial Technology Skills
It’s a competitive job market, but updating your technology skills can give you a great advantage – and maybe even have recruiters contacting you with opportunities. Having a career in geospatial isn’t just about knowing GIS and your specific field like urban planning, or environmental management. Other IT skills are increasingly being required and are in high demand. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to go back to school and earn a new diploma or degree to learn or improve your geospatial technology skills. Many free or cheap options are available that, in just a few weeks or months let you:
- Improve your data science skills (SQL, R, MySQL RStudio IDE, Apache Zepplin,..),
- Learn a new programming language (Python, Java, C++, C#, …),
- Learn or level up your web development skills (PHP, Java, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, …),
- Add IT skills (Jupyter Notebook, Information Security, CompTIA A+, Cloud Computing, AI, …)
- Improve and expand your GIS, Cartography, and Remote Sensing skillset, or
- Simply learn GIS for the first time,
The five options listed below are either completely free, or require a small monthly membership fee and/or a student or personal use ESRI ArcGIS licence (currently $100 USD/year). All five options have a flexible schedule. Some are paced online courses where you can plan when you do the assignments and work each week. Other options include self-study online courses and offline self-study where you set your own start and completion dates.
Click here to continue reading the full article published on GoGeomatics Canada…
Update ~ September 13, 2020 ~ I’m now enrolled in two programs on Coursera:
- Google IT Automation with Python Professional Certificate
- Java Programming and Software Engineering Fundamentals Specialization
I’ll be writing articles here, and likely for GoGeomatics about my experiences taking these programs. They’re already proving a great way to study for my IT course, and should be even more helpful in my web development course at Massey University during summer term (November, 2020-Feburary, 2021)
