Happiness Project: Learning with Skillshare

This month’s happiness project is focused on learning. For once, I can report that it’s going well so far!

I wanted to work on my Swedish this month, and I’ve been listening to more talk radio and reading more books with the intention of comprehension (normally I skim the local newspaper with the intention of getting half an idea of what’s going on in town). I haven’t yet broken out the exercise book, but that’s next.

One thing I really wanted to do was get a handle on Adobe Photoshop so that I could make some Pinterest-worthy graphics for this blog (and because sometimes it feels like I’m the only person who doesn’t know how to use Photoshop). I found a great beginning class on Skillshare, watched the video, and submitted the final project—the mood board that you see above! (I also created the Pinterest-friendly graphic at the bottom—I’m still working on my design fundamentals, as you can see. =))

If you aren’t familiar with Skillshare already, I highly recommend checking it out. It’s an online learning community for creative skills—you can find classes in everything from photography to cooking, hand-lettering to crocheting, entrepreneurship to personal productivity. If there’s a real-life skill you want to learn, someone is teaching it on Skillshare.

I joined Skillshare last year when I started to build this blog, in order to pick up some of the skills I’d need to make Dear Sabrina successful. I’ve taken several on photography (this one on telling a story via pictures and this one on editing in Lightroom have been most helpful), some WordPress/SEO classes, and a couple on blog branding and content planning. They’ve all been really helpful in launching and maintaining this blog, and I have a saved list of classes I’d like to take for personal development (like this beginner’s class on watercolor technique or this one on writing creative nonfiction by New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean!).

If there are any skills or hobbies you’d like to pick up, I highly recommend checking out Skillshare to see if they have any classes on the topic (they probably do!). Many of their classes are available for free; however, I got a premium membership last year because I wanted unlimited access to everything. (~$10/month). If you’re curious, you can check out my profile here to see what classes I’ve taken, what projects I’ve done, and what I’ve got my eye on.

BONUS: If you sign up through Dear Sabrina (by clicking any of the links above), you can get three months of Skillshare Premium for only 99 cents! 

Have you taken any classes on Skillshare? Anything to recommend (you know, for all that free time I’ll have after Bing-Bong arrives? ;)) If you were going to pick up a new skill or hobby, what would you choose? What are your other favorite online learning communities? (I’m also a big fan of Coursera for more academically/intellectually oriented classes.)

Note: I am a member of Skillshare’s Ambassador program, which means that I make a small commission if you join Skillshare through my links. I joined the Ambassador program after being a member of the platform for over a year—I would only ever recommend a product or service that I believe in and use myself. Thank you for supporting the companies that support Dear Sabrina!