Today I learned about selling art, photographs, video, and audio. I also learned about modeling and graphic design. None of these jobs were really for me, I'm not really an artistic type of person, however, I always find value in learning about stuff like this because I think it's interesting to see the process behind things you see so often, like people selling art online. It is also helpful to learn how to sell art because it can be beneficial for selling things other than art. The providing services unit was exciting overall because not a lot of the jobs in this unit really require higher education, so many jobs are good to start right now. Some of them don't require you to commit as much as other jobs, you can start a lot of them today and then stop if they don't interest you. Overall I learned a lot of websites from this unit and jobs I can start right now.
Today I Learned about many different ways you can provide services. Paid research jobs sounded interesting because they don't seem to take a lot of skill and can still pay a good amount. Some of the websites I knew about were like slicethepie, because as a kid I used to review music on slicethepie. However despite expanding what you can review I feel like they lowered the amount of money you could earn from it. Some of the other websites I saved because I saw some research jobs that I could do, that paid a fair amount. Public relations I learned a bit about in the writing unit, and I don't really feel like it's for me.
Today I finished up learning about the types of careers in writing. I learned about SEO Backlinking, which is a career I didn't know existed in writing. I didn't even know what SEO stood for or what it was. I think customer service as a form of writing is interesting.
I had to work as a cashier so I know that customer service jobs are tough but I think it would be easier to write to customers instead of being face to face talking with them. I also learned about technical writing which I thought was interesting and something I might look more into. I started the providing services unit and learned about tutoring available and that you can even do it online. I'm not sure if I would be a good fit for tutoring but I did think it was cool to know about the options available in tutoring.
Today I learned about how to become a blogger and the different types of work available as a blogger. For the most part, it doesn't seem like a job that is very stable income-wise. It has very low average pay, and most people who blog do it for fun for free. The ones who do get paid are in the very small minority. So I think it could be a good hobby unless you are doing it for a company. If you are doing your own personal blog I don't feel like from what I saw that it is a very stable career. I learned a little about ghostwriting, I think it's a cool career especially if you like writing but don't like the idea of being credited or known for your work. I think out of all of the writing careers so far blogging seems to be the most unsuitable for a career.
Today I Learned that those who are raised in foster care are way more likely to be incarcerated, I knew that on some level but some of the statistics go as high as 90% of foster kids placed in 5 or more homes are put in the criminal justice system. I also learned more about publishing books, I didn't really think about what goes into self-publishing books. It seems like it's harder to publish a book yourself, and to promote a book yourself, however, you also get more of the money. You can also hire teams for editing, and other parts of the publishing process and still make a good deal of the money compared to standard publishing. It's 40-60% of the profit from self-publishing and 10-12% from regular publishing. They both have their pros and cons though, so if you're looking for more stability it's better to go with traditional publishing, and if you want to really control what happens with your work it may be better to go with self-publishing. Self-publishing relies on your knowledge and connections to work, so it can be harder to establish. I personally would rather have stability if I were going to take the sleep to write a book because I feel like so much can go wrong in the publishing process that I would like a little more assurance and people with knowledge on my side than more money in the end. I also learned about copywriting, which I like because although it isn't the most creative form of writing I do like having a goal in mind when writing to guide me and I feel like it's something I could do.
Today I started the end of fundraising but couldn't think of any good ideas to do for the project so I went to the writing unit. In the writing unit, I learned the difference between magazines and journals. It was fascinating because I always thought they were the same thing. It was nice to know there is an actual difference between the two. Now I'm learning about publishing and it's a much more involved process than I thought it was. I used to want to be a writer as a kid but gave that up because I didn't feel like there was a lot of money in the field so I'm hoping to discover a field of writing that has stability and a decent wage.
Today I learned about grant writing and methods of fundraising online. I learned how companies can get involved with fundraising by making programs that incentivize their employees to donate to the cause. I also learned about email lists, and how you can buy a list of emails that you can cold message to get to donate to your program. However, I also learned that it is an ineffective way to overall raise funds because it can cause people to see your company in a negative light. They will mark your emails as spam and not want to work with your companies, and may just overall annoy a lot of people. I also learned about how companies can use events, social media, and influencers to get more donations to the cause. I knew that companies used influencers and social media, but learning about virtual events was new.
Today I learned more about building a network and more about fundraising through different means. I learned how to ask for donations through social media, and how to build connections on social media like LinkedIn to get donations. This was already mentioned earlier in the intro course but I learned more about how to build and present value to my connections so that we are both mutually helping each other. In this case, I provide something like knowledge and the other person would help with donating to my cause. I also learned the best ways to advertise a cause. Some parts of this job interest me but other parts I'm not sure are for me yet. I want to learn more about the job overall to see how my skills can fit in.
Today I finished up product manager, and I learned how to make a product plan. I'm not sure if I structured it properly but I feel like I learned a little bit about what goes into making one and thinking of new ideas for already established products. I also learned about product managers' salaries and the types of remote work available for it. I didn't think a job like this would have such a big salary so I was surprised, and I liked a lot of aspects of the job, and it didn't seem like I would need a lot of training and background knowledge to start this job, unlike something like data analyst which seems like a very hard field to get into. I also started to learn about fund-raising mostly about what the job entails and what it means to be a fund-raiser.
Today I learned more about being a product manager, I learned a lot of the vocabulary like MVP, and other abbreviations that have to do with the stage of the product. I learned a lot about the processes involved in producing an item and why each stage of the process is in the order it is. It's a lot more structured than what I thought being a product manager would be, there are different methods, and each stage has its own process. You have to cater to different parties, customers, investors the company you work for, etc. I thought being an inventor or innovator would be more of a freer job, but it has its own structures and rules. I think it's interesting to get a look at the behind-the-scenes steps to making a product, especially about quality assurance and surveys, because you usually only see stuff from the customer's point of view.
Today I learned how to make a website on Wix. The set-up was really easy, it was easy to find what I want and how to add stuff. However, the process of moving things around was extremely frustrating. I really feel like moving stuff on the webpage was extremely hard because it would click on unnecessary things and I would get frustrated trying to move the thing I wanted to move. I also had a little trouble adding or editing text boxes but I didn't have too much of a hard time otherwise. I've also started to learn a little about product management and I am enjoying it so far.
I learned how to upload content on it, change the theme, and customize it. It seems very difficult and despite having learned a lot about the process I don't think I could follow every step I learned and make the ideal website that I would want to make. I like that WordPress is extremely customizable but all the customization makes it hard to make choices, and finish a website when you know there are so many ways of going about it. Also, as a beginner to WordPress, there's no way of completely memorizing every way of customizing the website. I also learned about eBay and Shopify. I have tried to sell stuff on eBay before and kept getting people contacting me in an attempt to scam me. This resulted in my account getting banned because I would take someone's offer and then they would try a scam tactic and I couldn't sell it. So I think that it's helpful to get advice on eBay. As well as other websites to sell stuff with like Shopify because it gives you options on how you can sell stuff online besides commonly known websites like eBay or craigslist.
Today I learned how social media like Youtube or Instagram can be used in business to promote your brand or company. It was helpful to learn because it not only applies to the job module I'm currently in but it was also helpful if I wanted to pursue a career in content creation in the future. I also learned the best ways to communicate with a team at a job. I think this is especially useful because for my school we use Zoom, and it was helpful to get a behind-the-scenes look at what teachers or admins see and the functions they can use. It is useful to know about all the different ones as well because it will help me to be prepared for jobs in the future that may use Microsoft teams or skype. I also learned a little bit about data entry and have some resources I can use later to practice data entry skills
I learned how to code shapes, and color in those shapes on python, as well as conceptual ideas behind python commands. It was mostly using some of the stuff I learned in the video I watched yesterday and applying it and using it for games and other interactive things. Not really anything that I haven't said before about previous coding languages and stuff I've learned from coding. I have improved overall in spotting mistakes in code and picking up code in different languages. I think overall the coding section gave me a lot of flexibility and choice for what I can do with code. I couldn't code my own website or anything but I could learn to do that and do it with the background knowledge from this course. It has started me on good habits for learning to code and showing that I can code. It's also given me a lot of resources some that I have bookmarked for later on.
Today I learned a lot about python, I learned from scratch how to do advanced math and automate with python. I'd heard a lot about python before and how it is one of the easiest programming languages to learn. Mostly because of the community of people that are able to help and how widely it is used. I personally don't feel that it is any less difficult than java script, or SQL, although SQL might not be comparable. I like python more than most of the languages in the coding module, but I feel that almost all of them have the potential that python has and can be as easy to pick up, especially with the resources techie youth provided. I think the most fun thing about python was learning about games like the car game.
Today I learned more about coding specifically Python and PHP. After learning the basics of many coding languages it seems that most concepts carry over from language to language whatever the language is. Also, despite coding being a science and having strict rules, and ways of doing things, there is a great deal of creativity involved in whatever you are coding. Something as simple as making a greeting when you enter your name into a website uses creativity to decide what you will say and how you will say it. Also that it is an intensive process at some points because it has so many rules you have to make sure symbols are correct, or you are using a space in a certain area. It gave me a new respect for websites because it involves so much work to do even the very basics, but people are able to make working websites, while sometimes I struggle with figuring out how to move a character a certain way in a game. It also gives me respect for people who know multiple coding languages because I feel like it would get confusing because although they all have similar concepts they all have different "grammar" rules.
I learned the basics of programming in javascript and a few other languages. I learned that while all coding languages are different they still have basic concepts that you can carry from language to language. Not all languages end with a semicolon but some do so it's a decent habit to pick up. Learning to capitalize certain words or certain letters in the words is also a good thing to practice. It was also interesting to see games being made or playing games through coding, because the stuff that you usually don't even think about while playing a video game, stuff as simple as moving can be such an intensive process to code. There are ways to shorten stuff over time to make it easier, to just get the character you are playing with to do what you want. I also learned a bit about how coding doesn't always mean typing the full thing out you can use blocks to start out, and later on you can use this feature that is almost similar to autocorrect. I also like that the program will tell you when you've made a mistake. When I learned SQL's basics I had problems with finding out what I was doing wrong, and sometimes it was so far back because I didn't notice the mistake until much later.
Today I learned a little more in-depth about the responsibilities of a virtual personal assistant. Aside from learning more traveling tips I learned about resources that I could use for scheduling and how I can use the various google sites to do things that I would need as a virtual assistant. Google calendar can be used to build a schedule of meetings, work hours, and to-do lists. Google docs is a pretty standard tool that most people in school nowadays but I did learn a couple of new things about google docs, like that you can display word count while typing. I also learned a bit about transcription, it was an interesting job but despite my typing skills being a bit above average, it took a long time to actually transcript out what was said in the audio recording. I learned that there was a lot of nuisance in doing so, like listening for pauses in speech and where to put commas or end sentences. It can be a bit hard because people don't say when they are ending a sentence, you have to decide on your ownwhether its just a pause in what they are saying or the end of the sentence.
I learned a lot about homelessness and homeless youth today. I learned that 42% of homeless youth are lgbt+. Also, 20% of homeless people are children. I also learned a lot about Texas' "Don't Say Gay" bill, that it isn't only about teachers not being allowed to teach topics about lgbt+ or read books with lgbt+ characters, it also has many other facets to it. One of those is that schools will have to report to parents and guardians if a child is a part of the lgbt+ community. I also learned a bit about a community on Reddit that deals with activism and discusses topics in current news, and ways to educate others on ways to help support causes. I also learned about the responsibilities of being a virtual personal assistant. I learned that it involves a lot of book-keeping and knowledge on travel, such as efficient ways to travel, and where to stay when at certain locations.
Today I learned a lot about relationships and how they relate to databases. It was interesting to see that relationships often talked about in math are also applied in other places, although they are different ways of thinking about relationships. It's more about information between two data and drawing conclusions from that. I also learned a lot of the database language, which made it easier to understand because it provided a base to learn from. It's also easier to just have these definitions in mind so that you don't have constantly start from the beginning when it comes to explaining harder concepts. I then learned about keys and learned that most of the learning about databases is different tools and understandings of relationships and data. It was a lot of information, and I think I would have to review some of it to really get it but overall I understood most of the general concepts of the video so far.
I learned a lot more about SQL, some of the stuff was reviewed but it reinforced what I had learned yesterday. I also got started on learning about databases. The videos were very long so I wasn't able to learn a lot of new different things and learn more about specific things about databases and SQL.
Today I learned how to code some basic stuff on SQL. I have less than basic knowledge about most coding languages and stuff like that, so I was kind of worried that I wouldn't be able to learn it and have it actually make sense to me. However, the course at SQL was really good at breaking everything into bite-sized manageable pieces of information. The khan academy course gave me more confidence to do it on my own, without complete guidance through every step. It was interesting to see how easy it was to organize data, by just using code. I especially liked the last exercise because you could kind of do your own thing and organize the data any way you liked. I also learned you need a lot of patience for coding because a small mistake like missing a comma or a quotation mark will mess up the whole thing, and sometimes you don't even see or realize the mistake the first time looking at it. I really enjoyed it and learned that I can learn some coding.
Today I learned that video editing isn't for me. I just can't really get why certain things work better than other things and can't appreciate the art of it from the perspective of doing it I find it impressive to see it and see it be broken down as to what different edits mean and behind the scenes thoughts to a lot of editing choices in movies or online videos. I also learned about business analysts and what they do and how to get into the profession. Even if I don't decide to go directly into this felid the information was very useful and the resources provided were very helpful in general. Learning how to use excel is important for many jobs and even for college depending on what classes you take. It's always good to learn new ways of doing things in excel or just learn more about excel. I also started to learn about data entry mainly the differences between data entry and a data scientist, while some part of being a data scientist was appealing to me, I liked data entry more as a career so far. I also learned about what I will need to know in order to start an entry job and what this job entails. I feel like I have a couple of the fundamental skills and knowledge to get into this job but will have to work towards learning more about computer science since that's an area I really lack in. The salary breakdown is also really helpful because I can see how much I can start earning and where I can go in terms of salary.
What I learned today is that you have to have a direction that you want to go in, for life. Wanting to make money is a short-term goal, it's a goal that you need to sustain a lifestyle or idea that you actually want. I also learned that comparing your life to other people's lives is wasting a second of your life that you can't get back. This resonates with me because sometimes you look at other people your age and compare their successes and accomplishments to yours and feel that you have not been doing enough. While sometimes that may be true different people have different starting points in life and different advantages and skills. Sometimes you have to work harder to make up for the deficit but sometimes you don't need to worry about what other people are doing because you could just have completely different goals. Someone may own a business at a young age but if that's not what you want for your life you don't need to compare yourself to that person.
What I learned today is how to distinguish between a role model and a mentor. I also learned how to find a mentor who I can trust to be a model. I also learned ways to portray myself as a leader and things I should do and shouldn't do to gain respect as a leader. I learned tips to stay calm in situations that a lot of people would panic in and ways to manage stress. I also learned how to take care of my health.
Today I learned a lot about ways to reduce the amount of money I'm spending on a daily basis, and how to invest the money I'm saving. I learned how to make a budget and think of what I could cut out of my life to save money. I also saw many different investment options that I could use to long term become more financially stable.
Today I learned a lot of steps involves with getting a job and a lot of tips to do well in these steps. Such as making an attractive LinkedIn page for employers, or making a resume or cover letter. I had never made a cover letter before so it was helpful to see what the purpose was of one and how to utilize it properly. I also learned a lot of helpful interview tips which made me less nervous about the process since I have a lot more information about what being interviewed entails.
Day 1
Today I learned a lot about ways to make money through remote work, and online career choices I could have. Content creation is a very unique way of earning money with a lot of facets to it that can come together to give you a stable income. I also learned of online databases that actually post remote jobs so that later on I can look into other remote work myself.
Day 2
Today I learned a lot about different options for handling money. I learned about different bank accounts and their benefits, and which banks might be better for me based on what I'm looking for. I learned about stocks and cryptocurrency. I also learned about what my options are for payment if I ever start my own business.