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Completing a Coursera Specialization for Free

Coursera provides continuing education just like Udacity and offer the full learning experience that I am accustomed to, including lesson videos, reading materials, projects, discussion forums, and graded projects which are peer-reviewed. I recently completed the Full-stack Web Development in React specialization from Coursera, all for free. It’s called a specialization because it is made up of three courses below each with their own certifications and which takes 4-6 weeks each to complete: 1. Front-End Web UI Frameworks and Tools: Bootstrap 4 2. Front-End Web Development with React 3. Server-side Development with NodeJS, Express and MongoDB I started the program in December 2021 and finished it in June 2023 however. The intent of this post is to explain how I was able to fund the entire specialization for free. In December 2021, I read on social media that Coursera allowed for one free course per year if you were a student and had an email address from a partner school. I gave my stu
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Joining A Toastmasters Club is a Must

I have started attending the Toastmasters club at the downtown S.U.C.C.E.S.S. office called “Talk for Success Toastmasters” as a guest. It was started by my neighbor Suddhodan and the sessions have been helpful so far. It is held on Wednesdays from noon to 1PM and I’m petrified everytime I attend. Stage fright is the hardest thing to conquer I think but I know I have to get over it. I have yet to take on some of the roles like time keeper, table topic evaluator, speaker, etc and to be honest, I’m not looking forward to it.

Their membership benefits include books that clearly spell out the roles, etiquettes, and best practices. I have just attended two sessions and have already learned the following:

– Do not apologize and never say ‘sorry’. In previous public speaking engagements, I would apologize in advance at the start of the speech because I wasn’t a skilled speaker. This is apparently a no-no.
– Do not draw attention to your gap-fillers like ‘uhms’, ‘ahhs’, ‘you know’ , etc. This becomes apparent at Toastmasters clubs where someone is counting your gap-fillers. Just keep going. It’s a very informal crowd and everyone is nice. You and I would probably rather go to the dentist for a root canal but joking aside, I welcome the challenge.

(Room 110, 28 Pender Street West, Vancouver | http://talk-for-success-toastmasters.wikispaces.com)

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