They may happen in winter, summer, or even during the academic year, as semesters abroad, professional classes, or just academic courses or seminars. However you would name them, academic degree courses have their clear contribution to your knowledge, resume and experience.
Who wouldn’t wish to add an extra sparkle to the breaks between lectures and pursue a practical course in an academic subject that may be less connected to their regular curriculum, but closer to their heart?
Short courses may answer the need for something more, and are gaining popularity among international students who look for practical trainings in a shorter time that they should devote for a Bachelor’s or Master’s programme.
Why should I take a short course?
Now that you’ve been introduced to the possibilities of enriching your knowledge with short courses, let’s take a closer look to what they have to offer and why you should enrol in such a programme:
- You are interested in a field of study, other than the one you learn of at university. The high advantage of short courses is that they can be from technically any field, regardless of what you study right now. You can consider your chosen short course as an aid to specialize further or see your study from a different perspective or you can take an intensive look to a different field you see as a hobby and you are fond of. Either way, short courses involve freedom!
- You may be short on time and money. This means you may be just fit for short courses. They are highly practical, so you can specialize in your field of interest, without a significant investment. Learning the new field will last less and require less money than a Bachelor’s or Master’s university programme.
- You work in an interdisciplinary field. You may have studied a certain field, but now the company you work in is specialized in a field where many disciplines are interrelated. This is highly possible nowadays. Let’s take, for example, an engineering company with its marketing department. Once you take a short course in marketing, you will feel more competent in your department.
- You want a new element in your CV. The short course is an extra academic activity which will find its place in your CV and will enrich your experience. This is very useful especially if you are looking for a job or better opportunities.
- You can enjoy your free time. Although generally courses may not sound like activities for your free time, they usually include tours, outdoor workshops especially for summer courses and others. However, this is a productive way of spending a part of your vacation in the city where you study abroad.
How to find the perfect short course?
Now that you have your reasons sorted out, you can take a look at available short courses and find the most suitable one for you. The first thing you need to do is to visit Shortcoursesportal.
- What you need to do is select the discipline and subdiscipline and/or enter a keyword and start your search. You will notice that there are more than 4,900 short courses that you can apply for.
- Then you will get a list of short courses. If you click on the one that you find interesting, you can get to know about the details. You can find the tuition fee, start date, language of instruction, course description, content of the short course, etc.
- On the left bar, it is possible to filter your search by the form of education, language of instruction, location, tuition fee, duration, type of degree, type of education, etc. For instance, you can just click on “Fully online” under the “Type of Education” section and filter your search.
How short are short courses, really?
- The duration of the short courses depends on the discipline, the workload and the aim of the programmes. You can find short courses that are one week long such as summer courses, introductory sessions or certificate programmes on the basics of a computer programme. Usually, however, they last between four days and one month.
- You are also welcome to join one-year short courses that offer specifications on a certain topic or trainings to pass certain exams. The duration of the courses is not a standard one, so you should leave it to the last stage of your choice.
- This is also the time when you should consider whether you’d like a full-time programme or a part-time one and in the extra time you can explore more of the surroundings or maybe find a job.
How much do short courses cost?
There are short courses which are free of charge. You can find them mostly online and they may take one week to one year to complete. There are also short courses who can have tuition fees of almost 20,000 EUR. They are mostly diploma programmes in Engineering, Business, Management and Leadership. One thing is certain: regardless of your choice, you will pay far less than you would for a regular university degree programme.
The average price of a short course is around 500 – 800 EUR/programme. As there are exceptions, you will also find programmes that “stick to the rule”. In each of these cases, you should also consider your additional expenses, especially if the short course is abroad. Then, you will also have to save for accommodation, transport, visa and other documents, food, supplies and entertainment.
Get ready for your short course!
To sum up, short courses have already gained their fame in the education sector as being wonderful opportunities to learn about thousands of topics in a shorter period of time.
If you have decided on taking one, what you need to do is to begin your search and find the best short course for you. It is just a few clicks away!
But if you need a bit of inspiration to get you going, start with these institutions which offer a variety of exciting short courses: