Ever taught yourself something for a job?

lovesclimbing

So I'm graduating with a journalism degree in May. I love my field, I think I got a good education, but there are some things I wish I had learned more of. Mainly, Adobe InDesign. Partly because knowing it would make me more attractive to employers and partly because I've wanted to learn it and do page design ever since I practiced laying out a newspaper page in my editing class. So I decided to teach myself it. I went to Barnes and Nobles this afternoon with the intention of buying an InDesign textbook and teaching myself ...

And I walked out with not only an InDesign textbook, but also a CSS/HTML/Javascript textbook and the intention of teaching myself that as well!! I know the tiniest tiniest bit of coding, and I know being able to at least do basic page design/tweaks will also make me more attractive to potential employers.

I'm excited.

Has anyone else decided to teach themselves something for a job? Any advice? Discuss!

HisGirlFriday13

I worked in journalism for 10 years and I taught myself all kinds of different programmes, including InDesign, PS, and GIMP. I did also learn basic coding.

Depending on what kind of journalism you want to do, the coding and InDesign may or may not be helpful. Most newspapers use platforms that are just drop-in, no coding required.

But good for you for learning something new!

KeptInStitches

I taught myself JavaScript, jQuery, and HTML5 on a whim. Being able to program websites might help me develop web-based applications for operators in chemical plants. Doesn't hurt to know it anyway.

pinkshorts27

I have taught myself something for every internship that I have had. I'm an engineer and that comes with the territory

lovesclimbing

HisGirlFriday13 said:

I worked in journalism for 10 years and I taught myself all kinds of different programmes, including InDesign, PS, and GIMP. I did also learn basic coding. Depending on what kind of journalism you want to do, the coding and InDesign may or may not be helpful. Most newspapers use platforms that are just drop-in, no coding required. But good for you for learning something new!

Yay, another journalist!  What kind of journalism did you do? I've taken a photography class where I learned Photoshop which was good.  I basically taught myself GIMP.  My best friend gave me some tips to get me started on the basics and then I experimented.

To the bolded: that's true, but in my experience, it's always good to be able to do tweaks just in case something isn't quite how you want it. One of my classes has us design our own website and basically publish our own online news site for a semester. We use Wordpress and a template, but we have had little things we've tweaked with coding it ourselves.

For InDesign, I love print. That's my thing. I like online journalism as well, but I love to write and I really want to work for a newspaper or magazine. So for me, InDesign should be a help!

In addition, I believe that with journalism, it's becoming more necessary to be flexible and know a little bit of everything.  I really noticed that with my internship where I was reporting and writing my stories for print/online, and then one day they asked me to shoot some video.  And I didn't know how to edit it. (I am taking video/TV classes this semester as a result of that!)

melbelleup

definitely depends. If you want printing journalism I vote for learning InDesign. I know InDesign, Photoshop and HTML. HTML is the only thing I taught myself... though I also taught myself it when I was 14. I did InDesign workshops as well as 2 photoshop workshops plus playing with it by myself. That was all in my high school days though. Decided to go the education route than journalism. InDesign is pretty easy to teach yourself, just grab a good book to help you .

 I have taught myself numerous things both in college and in the work force. In college- I had to teach myself linguistics of German..that was a tough one.. but it clicked and I got it. In work force- I had to teach myself more advanced excel as well as learn about the PE teacher life. Still learning that though. (I work for a grant that is all about bettering PE for students)

emmyg65

Most stuff, I learned on the job, like InDesign, PhotoShop, basic HTML. I thought about learning some coding, but it's not really necessary for what I do now. I'm also beefing up my photography skills.

InDesign is just a great program to know. I used it to do our inserts, programs, and seating chart!

FiancB

Not for a job but i did teach myself a lot about photoshop and now I'm working on lightroom which I just finally got the gist of. PS is not the intuitive thing in the world so I did get the basics from a digital photography class in high school, which ended up being more of a PS class which I'm glad for. I don't think I ever would've figured it out on my own. I built on it a lot on my own but having help for figuring out the very basics was extremely helpful. 

Kind of unrelated but I've been using Duolingo (it's free and like a game!) to brush up on my Spanish, because knowing some Spanish when applying for jobs never hurts, especially now that i'm looking at possibly moving to CA. I learned that despite taking it repetitively through middle and high school I still pretty much don't know any haha. 

pumpkinsandturkeys

I've had to learn pretty much everything on the job, as I go, for my current position. I'm a social sciences major who always thought she'd end up in a related field... and now I work for a major computer software/IT company and am surrounded by technical engineers all day. my job isn't fully technical, but it's enough outside of my precious comfort zone that I really had to push myself, and continue to do so years later. The company also pays for a lot of technical certifications for things, so I've started taking advantage of that and spend a lot of time studying how our technology works and taking exams.

loro929

Yes, I had to learn python (and I had to learn it fast). It was a really frustrating task at first but now I consider it one of the most useful practical tools on my belt!