Breaking the Quarantine Slump: A Learning Opportunity
Article by Max Lazo
In school, we are taught about adapting to new business landscapes, anticipating interruptive technologies, and becoming comfortable with new environments. This always seemed like preparation for a career… not a pandemic! The virus certainly caught me off guard, as I found myself jobless for the first summer since the eleventh grade, and formerly lacking the motivation to find ways to be productive. It has been a humbling experience, as I never expected free time to seem so cyclical as it had been for the first few weeks of my quarantine, but it has taught me a lot about handling challenges and has made me a stronger person for it. This brief article is going to discuss several important things that have helped me to reinvent my quarantine experience so that I could extract more value out of this confusing time! Ultimately, it is my hope that readers with similar experiences may also be able to draw ideas or gain stronger direction in their lives so that they can capitalize on their time to strengthen their careers and opportunities.
What I have found to be the most effective source of motivation, is none other than LinkedIn. I recommend that readers build their online presence, follow all the companies that they may see themselves working for, and connect with peers. This motivated me for several reasons:
- I learned more about what companies are looking for in candidates.
- I was connected to free resources and webinars about skill development.
- I was motivated by the success and hard work of my connections.
What I’ll do is take five to ten minutes whenever I’m feeling sidetracked, and scroll through my LinkedIn feed to remind myself of all the opportunities that I could create for myself if I pick up Skill A, learn XYZ at this webinar, or work hard like Person C. Some important lessons that I would recommend for readers, is to learn about Virtual Etiquette, improve their LinkedIn profiles, and research recent developments at their ideal companies. As in-person networking events seem like a distant reality from where we currently stand, it is important to possess the skills to make strong impressions online and prepare for this new environment as recruitment approaches for many of us!
As for what to spend time working towards, I have found myself with an opportunity to take summer courses online through York University. This has been one of my largest time commitments throughout the quarantine, and having something to take up the bulk of my time has helped me to restore the routine that I was lacking in the weeks leading up to summer school. In my experience, York has made classes very flexible for learning, and I’ve been able to access lectures online whenever works best for me. Although this is not a reality for everybody, I think that anybody who can afford a handful of hours per week should consider summer courses to improve past marks or lessen course loads throughout the regular school year. Obviously GPA isn’t everything, but I’ve been motivated to use this time to work extra hard in my courses so that companies will look more favourably at me, and with a schedule that consists of two courses rather than five, I am confidently striving for marks that surpass my current average.
Perhaps summer school isn’t an option or you’ve been interning full-time, and you’re still wondering if there are any thoughts you can derive from this article. Well, I’m thrilled to present you with several ideas that I hope to provoke some thinking. Firstly, find a field or a set of skills that are complementary to your discipline, and learn more about it. For starters, earning working proficiency in any language would be beneficial, as it widens the scope for viable working opportunities, and anybody from Toronto that continued pursuing French can definitely attest to the roles in Ottawa and Montreal that are exclusive to bilingual speakers, I wish I could! To pursue new languages you can ease yourself into it with YouTube lessons, or helpful apps such as Duolingo, which can both be accessed through your computers and mobile devices. Duolingo is one of the most popular resources, and it provides you with an enjoyably gamified learning experience that will be sure to pique your interest.
Furthermore, as a student specializing in accounting, I have found that companies continue to discuss the strength of their advancing technologies, and a lot of jobs in business have expressed that ideal candidates will not only be studying business but also have understandings of coding languages and other computer skills. I strongly recommend that business students read CPA Canada’s recently released paper titled, “Why Should CPAs Code?”, as it provides people with a better understanding of the business world’s needs for more expertise in programming, and it references strong resources to get started. I am not an experienced coder, but I have used this quarantine to broaden my high-level knowledge and set goals for exploring these skills in more depth. From what I’ve researched, Python seems like a strong coding language for beginners to learn, and there is accessible learning at www.PythonInstitute.org, where exams can be taken for entry-level certification, as well as more advanced certifications. Other important computer skills to develop include fundamentals like Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, which we can never learn enough about, while there are also design tools like Photoshop that can be even more beneficial to people studying art or marketing! If none of these skills resonate with your interests, then there is also an incredible collection of free online courses that can be accessed through Harvard, which is a terrific opportunity to learn from such a prestigious school! Solidifying our skills and learning experiences, demonstrates to employers that we are truly the lifelong learners that are assets to workplaces of all types.
For my final recommendation, I strongly encourage readers to search for volunteer opportunities. Society is depending on people in ways that it has not before, and there are plenty of opportunities to get involved with organizations that will offer unique experiences that could become assets going forward. In the last few weeks, I have Googled “volunteer opportunities” multiple times, and I have found positions for board members, roles in communities for helping the elderly, and tech assistants. Some of these postings have suggested that benefits include learning new skills, and receiving letters of recommendation, which are amazing rewards for part-time commitments that can mostly be carried out from home, and often have positive implications for others. Sometimes all we need to be motivated is the fulfillment of helping others, and it is even more gratifying when there is an experience to build upon and bring into our careers.
In conclusion, I hope that this article served readers in some helpful way and offered some insight into solutions for the slump that some of us may have stumbled into. Of course, these ideas drove me because of how they are so closely connected to my career, but I think that any passions and hobbies like cooking or exercising would be equally beneficial to people! Studying business has helped me to tackle the changing environment with this approach, but everybody should find a way to use the quarantine to their advantage, whether it be by strengthening their skills, acquiring new ones, or continuing with the same hard-working routine that you had before!
See CPA Canada article here
See Harvard courses here
See PythonInstitute.org here
See Duolingo here