7 Reasons You Should Never Fully Leave Education
Publié le 29 May 2023
Graduation doesn’t mean that it’s time to stop learning. In fact, there are 7 reasons why you should never fully leave education.
In an increasingly crowded and competitive marketplace, developing as a professional can represent the key difference between progressing throughout your career or stagnating. Without a doubt, one of the best ways to keep improving is through a commitment to continuous learning. These can be accomplished by attending courses and engaging in additional training on a regular basis.
But there’s more. Continuing education is also beneficial for our cognitive skills and overall mental health. Memory, problem-solving, and other intellectual abilities can be greatly stimulated, reinforced, and maintained through lifelong learning.
Whether you are interested in learning specific new technical skills such as PySpark, acquiring new project management abilities, or simply training your brain to be in tip-top shape for many years to come, continuing education might be the answer.
Want to find out more about 7 reasons why you should never fully leave education? Then, this guide is for you!
What Is Continuing Education?
Let’s begin with a definition of “continuing education.” As you might expect, the expression refers to the act of learning, refining, or developing new skills as an adult beyond the more formal type of education that generally ends after a person graduates from university.
Continuing education encompasses many different types of learning, delivered in various ways. From virtual or hybrid webinars to full or part-time college courses, and from group training sessions to one-on-one, in-person coaching, continuing education can be for everyone.
The beauty of continuing education is that it enables you to deepen your knowledge about virtually any subject in a way that truly suits your (likely very busy) lifestyle as a working professional.
Regardless of whether you are curious about learning what is star schema, polishing up your French, training yourself to become a more confident public speaker, or anything in between, the chances are that there is a continuing education course that’s right up your street.
Learning for Life: The Top 7 Reasons Why You Should Never Fully Leave Education
Now that we have clarified what continuing education is, let’s delve deeper into some of its most impressive advantages.
1. Strengthening Your Brain Capacity
Perhaps you want to steer your career in a different direction and become a data scientist or engineer. Or you simply want to enjoy better brain capacity and overall mental health—including potentially feeling less anxious, more confident, and more prepared to tackle everyday challenges.
Choosing a course that helps you keep your brain strong and active could be a great idea. As we grow older, many of our brain functions can begin to slowly and gradually deteriorate. Our memory may falter, our problem-solving skills may weaken, and we may generally feel less sharp.
Studies have shown that maintaining our brain active through lifelong learning could help delay or minimize such changes. Think of continuing education as a gym for your brain, allowing you to keep the “muscles” of your cognitive functions fit and healthy throughout your life.
2. Expanding Your Network
If your main reason for lifelong learning is more social, then you can be sure that your current network will inevitably expand with courses or training sessions. Whether you join a regular webinar, participate in group coaching sessions offered by your employer, take a part-time course at a local college, or anything else, you will certainly meet lots of new people.
Some of them are likely to become friends for life, potential future business partners, or simply valuable acquaintances who help you get more clarity and motivation in your life. However you look at it, the social and community aspects of continuing education are truly enjoyable parts of the learning process.
3. Attracting Better Job Opportunities
If career growth is your top priority right now, then enrolling in a course could be what makes you stand out from other professionals. Think about it: these days, most people applying for a job or looking to advance their career face rivals with similar qualifications and experiences.
If, however, you can demonstrate that you furthered your learning by attending a more specific course or gaining a coveted qualification with specific skills, your employer will instantly be impressed. The great thing is that this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to drop everything you do to pursue a three-year Master’s Degree.
A part-time, three-month online course in a discipline you are passionate about and linked to your career ambitions can make all the difference. It shows the same commitment to learning and improvement that will carry over into all aspects of your professional life.
4. Thinking in a More Innovative Way
Most adults who choose to never fully leave education and continue learning will go on to pick a subject that they have relative familiarity with. For example, if you already speak basic Spanish, you may be eager to deepen your knowledge of that language for career-related purposes. If you are already a proficient IT user, you may be intrigued to learn more about artificial intelligence and machine learning.
However, many people want to develop skills for success to approach subjects in which they have very little knowledge. In this case, continuing education can be crucial to help them expand their thinking and tap into more creative and innovative parts of their brain.
This, in turn, enables them to develop that famous “out-of-the-box thinking” that so many people (including current and future employers) are impressed with.
5. Discovering New Skills and Interests
What if your plans and goals for the future do not include any further career advancement (or change), but you simply have an insatiable thirst for knowledge? Well, in this case as well, continuing education might be perfect for you.
As discussed in the previous section, picking a course or training in a completely new and unfamiliar discipline can be extremely beneficial, not just from a job-related perspective. By listening to your real needs, interests, and passions, you can unlock parts of yourself that you didn’t even know existed or had kept hidden for a long time.
Whether you are a CEO who dreams about becoming a fitness instructor, a high school teacher wanting to launch their own e-store, or an IoT remote access device expert seeking to learn how to play the ukulele – the world is your oyster!
6. Boosting Your Earning Potential
So far, we have been discussing mostly intellectual, cognitive, and professional reasons why continuing education is often a great choice for many people. But what about choosing to attend a course or gain a certification purely because you want to increase your income?
That’s a totally valid and very common motive that leads lots of individuals to become lifelong learners. Many sectors, such as IT, medicine, and finance, are constantly on the lookout for an applicant with a solid CV that demonstrates a wealth of knowledge of different subjects and topics.
And what better way to prove your expertise than by showcasing all the courses you attended and the qualifications you obtained? As a result, your chances of securing a better, higher-paid job will likely improve. This is especially true in sectors where employers are actively recruiting new graduates with certain skills, which can lead to a strong start in a high-paying industry.
Your wide range of skills is an invaluable asset to a potential employer and, in turn, can become your free pass to either landing a competitive salary or negotiating one once you have been shortlisted.
7. Improving Your Performance at Work
Are you happy with where your career is at and feel fulfilled in your current role? If finding a new career path is not part of your medium-term plans, you can still benefit from continuing education. Regardless of the industry you work in, making sure that your performance is always great is one of the most crucial aspects of maintaining a steady job.
And guess what can help you tremendously with that? Continuing education, of course. If you have no specific interest in enrolling in a course outside of your organization, then why not take a look at what your company offers?
In most cases, and especially with larger corporations, the chances are that your employer will offer a wide range of continuing education options. From one-off webinars on Slack and Gmail integration to more regular group coaching on inclusivity and diversity, from individual training to conferences, lectures, and short-term courses, ask your manager and select the one that you think will suit you best.
If you make a habit of this, you will soon begin to notice how much your performance at work can improve as you upskill your own capabilities. You will enjoy better focus, motivation, preparation, eagerness to get to work, and personal fulfillment.
But there’s one more advantage of continuing education that we shouldn’t overlook: learning to speak a new language. In today’s globalized world, being able to communicate with people from different cultures and backgrounds can make a big difference in your personal and professional life.
Whether you’re interested in Spanish for a future vacation, Mandarin for a potential business opportunity, or simply expanding your language skills, continuing education can provide you with the resources to achieve your goals. Don’t hesitate to explore language courses as part of your lifelong learning journey.
The extra benefit? Your employer will realize all this, too, which in turn will lead them to want to keep you among their talented staff for as long as possible.
Never Stop Learning: Choose Continuing Education
Whether you want to progress in your current career, change jobs, or simply ensure that your cognitive skills and mental health remain as sound and strong as possible as you grow old, continuing education can be an answer.
With life-long learning, you can deepen your knowledge of virtually any subject, from project management techniques to AI and machine learning technologies, from multivariate LSTM to e-commerce trends, and much more. Looking at the 7 reasons you should never fully leave education, it’s clear that committing to learning can have positive benefits in multiple aspects of your personal and professional life.
Are you ready to become a life-long learner? There’s no better time to get started.
