{"id":826,"date":"2021-03-19T12:37:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T12:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.alison.com\/?p=826"},"modified":"2021-05-05T14:37:34","modified_gmt":"2021-05-05T13:37:34","slug":"5-things-to-remember-when-trying-to-finish-online-courses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/5-things-to-remember-when-trying-to-finish-online-courses","title":{"rendered":"5 Things to Remember When Trying to Finish Online Courses"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Francisco P. –\u00a0<\/b>As I\u2019ve been taking my Alison courses, I\u2019ve been learning little things that really help me to finish online courses and get certified. You see, when I first started taking Alison courses I kept finding them either too hard or too easy. As a result, I didn\u2019t finish the courses, and after a little while I felt disappointed with my progress. But then I realised that I was doing a few things wrong. These were really small things, but they made a big difference. Now that I\u2019ve corrected them, finishing courses is much easier. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, I decided to share with you a few things that I try to remember when I\u2019m finishing my courses. These are just from my personal experience, but I really hope they help you too!<\/span><\/p>\n

1. It gets harder<\/span><\/h2>\n

Some courses start out easy. Really easy. At first, I thought this meant that the course was going to stay at this level the entire way through. So, thinking that I was too advanced for the course, I would give up and try a new one. This turned out to be a mistake. Alison courses are designed to cater to all skill levels, particularly their <\/span>Learning Paths<\/span><\/a>. Many of them bring total beginners all the way up to advanced skills. Just because they start easy, doesn\u2019t mean they stay that way, so stick with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Skipping stuff you already know is not a good idea<\/span><\/h2>\n

Sometimes you find a topic or a concept in a course that you are already familiar with. This happened to me when I took a<\/span> photography course<\/span><\/a>. So, I skipped ahead until I got to a topic I was completely unfamiliar with. But then, I couldn\u2019t understand this new topic at all. It turned out that all the stuff I needed to understand this new topic was included inside the sections that I had skipped. So I stopped skipping sections, and it really helped.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Refresh older topics, it helps<\/span><\/h2>\n

Even if you just did a topic yesterday, and especially if you covered it a few days or a week ago, when you resume your course the first thing you should do is look over the topics you just did. This isn\u2019t because you\u2019ve forgotten them (although, you might have). It\u2019s because by going over the information again you can actually trick your brain into thinking it needs to learn this stuff again, and this helps you to remember things for longer! (something I learned from a <\/span>psychology course<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Do Certificate courses first, then Diplomas<\/span><\/h2>\n

Certificate courses<\/span><\/a> should be done for the same reason that you shouldn\u2019t skip the easier topics within courses. Even if you think you know everything in the course, there is definitely something in there that will make it easier to get through Diploma courses<\/a>. And besides, C<\/span>ertificate courses<\/span> take less than 3 hours, so it\u2019s a small step towards making your next course a success.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. The certification is a great motivator<\/span><\/h2>\n

The first time I finished a course, I didn\u2019t buy a certificate. A few weeks later, Alison sent me an email reminding me that I could get one, and I thought \u201cok, why not.\u201d So I bought one and put it on my desk. Within 3 days I had finished another course. Just having that certification in front of me actually really motivated me to keep going with my next course, because it reminded me of my achievement and what I was working towards. If you don\u2019t have one, <\/span>definitely get one<\/span><\/a>, I think it really helps.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Francisco P. –\u00a0As I\u2019ve been taking my Alison courses, I\u2019ve been learning little things that really help me to finish online courses and get certified. You see, when I first started taking Alison courses I kept finding them either too hard or too easy. As a result, I didn\u2019t finish the courses, and after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alison-in-action","match-height"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/5-Things-to-Remember-When-Trying-To-Finish-A-Course-1024x683.jpg","featured_category":"Alison in Action","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions\/832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}