# Taking classes or learning a new trade

I insisted on the importance on doing things because you like doing them, and not just to fit them on a curriculum, but nothing stops us from doing both. Perhaps you’d like to prepare for a change in your professional career, or learn skills that might come in handy financially speaking, or for doing the plumbing work at home.

What skills *can* you learn? Some are more costly than others or require moving around to participate. And which skills do you *wish* to learn?

If you’re in a larger city, local classes can offer evening courses, and depending on the country you live in these can be very cheap, as do the accommodations for people with jobs and other obligations. Near me, I have courses for English, marketing, accounting, law and human resources. But instead of requiring daily attendance for 2 years, you’re allowed to get the same diploma with the condition of a minimal presence per semester and success during the tests. And instead of 2 years, you get 4, to adapt school to your schedule.

The COVID pandemic has convinced many reluctant universities and schools to provide online courses. It’s often a mixture of online and face-to-face, in that the program will be available through PDF files and video conferences, while exams will be done on site. Finally, some courses can be done 100% online.\\

## In-person classes

Where I live, it’s mostly for trades. Trades requiring your two hands and some sweat, because the digitalized age is a fundamental mistake and there’s nothing better than reconnecting with your ancestors who mastered the crafts and destroyed their knees while at it. Also, artificial intelligence will have a harder time replacing them. Until the robot uprising, that is.

In my country, and I hope in yours too, many trade schools have adapted classes for people who have grown sick with their current day-job and offer evening and week-end classes outside of the usual working hours.

You could become a **Cook** or **Baker**. Amazingly, there are schools that allow you to get a cooking qualification 100% online, but I wonder what they are worth. In-person class will have the teacher next to you like a Gordon Ramsay on steroids if that’s your kink (I don’t judge).

**Carpenters** will need to be on place to learn, not surprising considering the equipment it requires. If you can’t stand sitting before a computer all day as an office drone, it may strike your interest.

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There’s more, and it’s highly variable. Payments and available grants change from country to country and from city to city, as do the requirements for completing a training or schooling. Internet is your friend to get more accurate information for your specific situation.
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## Online classes

When it comes to skills that don’t require your hands like it would a carpenter, online classes have you covered. There are two important things to note here. One: Online has an overwhelming number of coding classes and other computer-related skills on offer. They are sought after and can be learned fully remote (watch the cat). Two: they are among the jobs that will be impacted the most by AI technologies.

Both are close and often spoken interchangeably, but **coding** is technically a subset of **programming**. And as far as I know, a coder usually has a lower skill level than a programmer, though don’t quote me on that, and don’t start a slap fight between them, will you?

To put it simply, before you could chat with your friends through a messenger software, someone had to program and code it. Then that person tested it, realized it was full of bugs, and decided to heroically solve all bugs until the software was perfect. A day later, you found them crying on the toilet and praying to the god of technology to do it all for them in exchange for their souls. And the next day, they decided which bugs to work on in priority and which ones to blame the intern for. All this so that I, down the line, can send “your mom” to all my contacts by mistake and bring great shame to my entire family.

*Everyone* and their cats are looking for coders and programmers. If a firm exists and has just the lightest presence on the internet, they will be looking for coders. If not, then they are hiring a society full of them.

It’s also a job that often allows partial or fully remote work.

As for learning how to code, on the very internet born through coding? Finding a class isn’t as hard as finding the most optimal class for you.

Type “how to learn coding” on any search engine. The result is the closest you’ll get to comprehend the concept of infinity.

It’s to the point that “which coding course is the best for a total beginner” yields just as many results. The good part is, if you ever feel stuck while writing a code line, you know that a million people before you hit the exact same snag, and a 12-year-old kid has written several guides on how to solve it. You will never be alone, you and your lack of confidence in your coding skills.

Coders use many letters. **Accountants** are worse. They use numbers. They spread dread wherever they walk on this accursed earth, yet people would rather burn a random woman on the stake for a flimsy accusation of witchcraft than the accountant. Because the world can more-or-less function without witches, but taking away the occult magic of accountants is like removing the dressing of a salad. It’s bad taste.

At the core, they keep track of a firm’s income and expenditure. But that would be reductive. They are also involved in cost analysis for projects and any decisions regarding finances. Auditing firms will send their own accountants to other companies to check their records and make sure they are right.

Just like coding, it’s a job that is pretty much always sought after, it’s also one that is expected to be replaced in part by AI.

Becoming an **English teacher** is a way to combine both a new job and travels. English is a language taught in most countries thus teachers with a good grasp of the language are sought after. If your grasp of that language (or another, though demand for it might be less) is limited, there are many resources to learn and better yourself. Beyond being good at the language, you’ll need a degree. Interestingly, what degree it is isn’t as important as just having it. To stay home, you can give online courses, but for the sake of travel, Asian countries are reputed to be seeking English teachers all the time.
