Short courses that will pave the way for success in the modern job market

“While it can be frustrating to keep up with the pace of technology and the ever evolving tools at our disposal, the best way to ensure you’re improving your skill set and future-proofing your career is to commit to learning something new once a year,” says Shevon Lurie, MD at Vega – a brand of The Independent Institute of Education (The IIE).

In response to the need for professionals to reinforce their careers, Vega in partnership with the Advertising Media Association of South Africa (AMASA), CoinED, DigitLab, CodeSpace and a variety of industry specialists, has launched six new short courses,  each designed to help qualified professionals get ahead of the latest trends and changes relevant to their industry, and to respond to these advancements more effectively.

1. Freelancers of the future

Considering the freelance market grew by 63% in 2015 alone, there are likely many young and creative 20-somethings in need of a more structured approach to running their own freelance businesses. The ‘What the Freelance’ (WTF) short course is an adaptation of Brent Spilkin’s book of the same name, offering freelancers or employers valuable insight into the ‘gig economy’ of South Africa.

The 12-week short course delivers fundamental best practice for creative and digital freelancers who typically have all the practical skills necessary to make money as a freelancer but lack the business acumen needed to manage revenue and expenses. The course focuses on teaching the core elements of strategy, accounting for small businesses (including the tricky topic of taxes), sales and marketing, and much more.

2. Become a Bitcoin trader

If you’re intrigued by cryptocurrency, blockchain and Bitcoin, and want to find out how you can get in on the action, there’s no reason why you can’t take a quick short course to improve your understanding of these very new and often confusing concepts.

An Introduction to Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology is one of the new short courses that are available to attend at Vega. This three-week course offers two highly engaging sessions per week (only available at Vega’s Johannesburg campus), covering everything from the history of some of the world’s leading cryptocurrencies to buying, trading and using Bitcoin.

3. Become a shopper marketing master

The IIE Shopper Marketing for Brand Building short course ensures those responsible for brand, shopper marketing and customer management functions are equipped with the skills they need to create an effective brand and marketing strategy.

“Many people are assigned the role of shopper marketer without having the necessary capabilities to carry out the responsibilities of this role effectively enough,” says course navigator and MD at Future Shopper, Colleen Francis. “Shopper marketing requires an in-depth understanding of the latest trends and how they come to be, which this course aims to provide.

4. Building your brand with the media

For individuals working in the brand, marketing and communications industries hoping to gain a better understanding of brand-building from a media-management perspective, Media Management in Brand Building short course is definitely worth a few hours of your time per week.

This course, available to study at Vega’s Johannesburg and Cape Town campuses, covers everything from the local and international media landscape to media planning and strategy tactics, and is ideal for those looking to change careers, or learn more about how the media and brand building plug into their respective fields.

5. Social for business – how to network like a boss

Knowing how to make optimum use of social media for the benefit of your business’s bottom line is no longer a skill that’s nice to have, but a requirement for brand and marketing managers, communications professionals and entrepreneurs alike.

The Social Media Marketing short course is a must for those gunning to edge out the competition and use social tools and platforms to their full potential. The course, presented over six weeks with one class per week, offers a guide to social media as it exists in South Africa and around the world today, how to study and use social media metrics to gauge ROI, and social media policy implementation.

6. Build your own award-winning website

The Introduction to UI/UX and Coding for Web short course teaches participants the fundamental principles of creating and maintaining simple websites, with an emphasis on web development as it relates to user experience, based on industry best practice. Using industry-standard software to design, code, and implement web media, participants don’t just learn how to make a website, but how to plan out the process from start to finish.

This short course runs over six weeks with two sessions per week, and covers HTML5, CSS3 and responsive web design, while unpacking the principles of User Experience Design (UX) and the relationship between UX and User Interface (UI) design.

“Pursuing short courses to support higher learning is vital in the modern working environment, which is constantly in flux with new and exciting changes,” says Lurie. “The six new short courses are designed by industry-leading organisations and agencies, as well as a range of talented individuals who are highly experienced in their fields, and who have personally taken the time to facilitate and deliver these courses for the purpose of building better, more productive leaders in South Africa.”

The new short courses add to an already comprehensive range of IIE qualifications and short courses available to study at Vega, designed to nurture people who are work-ready and prepared to tackle real-world problems. With 94% of IIE Vega students finding employment within just six months of graduating, these courses offer professionals support in reaching their career goals.

For more information on the four new short courses and IIE qualifications available to study at Vega, visit www.vegaschool.com.