You’ve probably been scrolling on your phone or clicking around on your laptop for hours on end since you’ve started social distancing. After all, there are tons of interesting things populating the internet. If you’d like to take a break from the endless stream of Tik Tok videos and Facebook posts, checkout LinkedIn Learning.
The site provides over 13,000 video tutorials falling under the umbrella categories of Business, Creative, and Technology. As a Middlebury student, you have access to all of these resources. Simply sign in with your school credentials and get started learning something new! Below are just a few of the courses available to you.
Business
Algorithmic Trading and Stocks Essential Training
Many stock market trades are conducted with algorithms: computer programs that buy or sell stocks according to mathematical formulas. These trades are conducted at a speed and frequency that is hard for humans to replicate. Therefore, it’s important for finance professionals, and indeed everyone who invests in the stock market, to know how these algorithms work. This course shows how to develop a back-tested, rules-based trading strategy and program a simple trading algorithm of your own.
SEO Foundations
Explore the basics of SEO, including how to read a results page and how rankings affect businesses large and small. Discover how to implement foundational optimization strategies and techniques, including how to conduct keyword research, build internal and external links, optimize your pages and content, measure your successes and progress, and plan for a long-term SEO strategy.
Excel: Advanced Formulas and Functions
Follow along with Excel expert Dennis Taylor as he demystifies the hundreds of formulas and functions available in Excel. Dennis starts with a few critical formula shortcuts that will speed up your work, then covers a variety of functions, such as VLOOKUP, MATCH, and INDEX, statistical functions, text functions, and date and time, math, text, and information functions. Dennis provides practical examples to help viewers easily transition to using Excel’s most powerful formulas and functions in real-world scenarios.
Creative
Web Development Foundations: Web Technologies
You use it every day, for banking, researching, shopping, and social media, but do you really know how the web works? In this course, author James Williamson introduces the technology that makes the web run, the terminology involved, and how it all comes together to power the websites we know and love. He covers the alphabet soup of technologies involved (HTML, CSS, URL, DNS, HTTP, and IPv6), and explains what separates the front end (what we see) from the back end (what we don’t) on the web. This course is your “plain English” guide to the world of domains, databases, servers, and the technology that makes the web work.
Logo Design: Techniques
Logos are a critical part of the modern visual landscape. A good logo is simple, instantly recognizable, and comprised of only the most essential elements. To learn how to create your own, it’s important to be able to identify the components and design techniques behind the most successful examples, from the Nike swoosh to the Coca-Cola ribbon. In this course, Nigel French reveals how successful logos depend on good type choices and simple shapes–or the combination of simple shapes. He shows examples of popular logos and then demonstrates how to use the same construction techniques to create similar logos in Adobe illustrator. The course combines theory with the nuts-and-bolts techniques that emphasize simplicity and readability: the principles that ground the world’s best logo designs.
User Experience for Web Design
A good user experience design will make visitors stay on your site. A bad one will make them go to someone else’s. This class teaches you how to apply simple UX design principles to your site to make it behave in the way that users want and expect.
Learning AutoCAD (2019)
Learn how to use AutoCAD 2020 to create precise 2D drawings for architecture, construction, manufacturing, and more. This beginner-level course covers the basics of the AutoCAD user interface as well as critical CAD drawing and design techniques. Autodesk Certified Instructor Shaun Bryant leads you step-by-step through drawing simple geometry, creating annotations, and building documentation that is suitable for sharing and printing. By the end of the course, you’ll have the foundational knowledge you need to create simple, annotated drawings and further develop your AutoCAD skills.
Technology
Data Science & Analytics Career Paths & Certifications: First Steps
The career opportunities in data science, big data, and data analytics are growing dramatically. If you’re interested in changing career paths, determining the right course of study, or deciding if certification is worthy of your time, this course is for you. You will hear about the five biggest career opportunities, the six leading industry-recognized certifications available, and the most exciting emerging technologies.
Code Clinic: Python
Successful programmers know more than just how to code. They also know how to think about solving problems. Code Clinic is a series of courses where our instructors solve the same problems using different programming languages. Here, Barron Stone works with Python. Barron introduces challenges and provides an overview of his solutions in Python. Challenges include topics such as statistical analysis and accessing peripheral devices.
Build an iOS App in an Afternoon
Want to turn your idea into a full-fledged iOS app? Learn how in this course. Todd Perkins shows folks new to iOS development how to create an iOS app in the span of an afternoon, sharing the best practices along the way. Todd covers the code, tools, frameworks, and practices for building iOS applications, including how to create an Xcode project, run your first app, build a user interface, and code interactivity.
Find these and so many more courses at https://www.linkedin.com/learning/