I spent $1200 on three post-grad courses and here’s what actually moved my career forward
Two weeks after I walked across the stage to get my communications degree, I was camped on my mom’s couch eating stale Cheerios, scrolling LinkedIn until my thumb ached. Every other post was someone my age announcing their new upskilling course, their shiny new certification, their plan to “hit the ground running” post-grad. I had a part-time social media gig that paid $15 an hour and no idea what came next, so that pressure crawled right under my skin. If everyone else was doing courses to get ahead, I must be falling behind if I wasn’t, right?
My cousin texted me a screenshot of a $600 digital marketing certification from a big name online school, said her friend got a promotion three months after finishing it. I pulled the money from my meager savings, signed up, and then added a 6-week public speaking crash course ($400, because I was terrible at presentations and figured that couldn’t hurt) and a $200 Canva brand design side course on a whim, because it was self-paced and I could do it in 20 minute chunks after work.
I won’t lie, I half-assed most of the big certification. I’d finish my 8 hour shift at the part time gig, drag myself to my desk, fall asleep halfway through the module on search algorithm basics, wake up with iced coffee spilled on my keyboard, and have to rewatch the whole thing. The final exam was proctored online, I had to clear my entire desk, prop my laptop on a cardboard box so the camera could see my whole face, and my chonky orange cat walked across the keyboard mid-exam, deleted half my answers, and I had to beg the proctor to let me start over. It was humiliating. I passed in the end, posted the certificate to LinkedIn, got 17 likes, two of which were my aunt and my old college roommate who just felt bad for me. No recruiter ever asked about it. No job application ever cared that I had it. It just sits in a drawer somewhere, printed out on fancy card stock I bought to make it look official.
The public speaking course was even worse, in my memory. We had to do a 5 minute practice speech every week in Zoom breakout rooms, and I did mine about why orange cats are better than every other cat, and I stumbled over my words so bad I just sat there red-faced for 10 whole seconds, no sound coming out. I wanted to delete my account and never log back in. The only thing I remember from the whole 6 weeks is the instructor saying offhand, after someone else messed up their speech, “If you blank, just pause and grab your water bottle. No one knows you forgot your line, they’ll just think you’re pacing yourself.” That’s it. That’s the only thing I’ve ever used from that whole $400 course. I used it just last month, actually, when I blanked mid-presentation to 20 company stakeholders, and no one even noticed I messed up.
The $200 Canva course I almost forgot I even took. I did a lesson here and there while I waited for my laundry to dry, just learned little tricks like how to batch resize graphics for different platforms, how to make transparent text boxes that don’t look cheap, how to use the pro version’s brand kit to keep everything consistent. I didn’t even put it on my resume. I thought it was just a silly little thing I did to fill time when I was bored and didn’t want to watch another episode of the same show I’d already rewatched three times.
Three months after I finished all three courses, my manager at the part time gig mentioned that their long-time designer had quit, and no one wanted to redo the client monthly newsletter that looked like it had been thrown together on Microsoft Paint in 2008. I volunteered, because I had nothing to lose, and used all those little tricks I’d learned. The clients went crazy for it. Suddenly all the clients were asking if we could redo their social media graphics, their service one-pagers, their new client welcome packets. Six months later I got a full time position, with benefits and a raise that paid back all that $1200 three times over in the first year.
I still think about this every time I see a new grad posting online asking what’s the best course to take after graduation to grow their career. Everyone’s got a hot take, everyone’s selling something, everyone says this bootcamp or that certification is the magic ticket. I get the confusion, I was that confused kid eating stale Cheerios on her mom’s couch, desperate for any answer that would make me feel like I wasn’t messing up the whole “adulting” thing.
I still get the urge sometimes, honestly. Last month I saw a project management certification that all my LinkedIn connections are getting, and I almost signed up, just because I thought I should, because it would look good, because maybe I’m falling behind. I closed the tab after 10 minutes, because I realized I don’t actually need it right now. I’m already learning the project management stuff I need for my job on the job, anyway.
I don’t have a clean answer, obviously. What worked for me won’t work for everyone. My best friend took that $10k data bootcamp two years after graduation and doubled her salary, so that magic ticket worked for her. I still mess up all the time, last week I sent three wrong versions of a graphic to a client, so I’m not some guru who figured it all out. But I’ve stopped looking for the “best” course a long time ago. The best one isn’t the one with the big name brand or the highest price tag or the one that impresses strangers on LinkedIn. It’s just the one that solves the small, annoying problem you actually have right in front of you. That’s enough, so far. (Word count: ~1120)
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