How have you spent your education budget?

Cassidy·Oct 27, 2021

I work at a company with a $2000 yearly education budget per employee, and I've not been taking advantage of it! What has been your favorite way of spending yours, if you have one? Do you have book, course, community, etc recommendations?

Briana·Oct 27, 2021

Hi Cassidy! I guess it depends on what you're looking for. I took some classes through Stanford Continuing Studies and there were often others in the class who were there using their company's education stipend: https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/. Right now I believe all of the classes are still online, so people can join from anywhere in the world.

annamiller·Oct 28, 2021

Hi @cassidoo That's awesome to hear your company has an education budget. That's a great perk and I'll def look out for this in my next role in tech. So far I haven't had the chance to have an education budget as a benefit, but if I did, I would def invest in books and coaching courses. I'm also a career coach, so def biased towards 1:1/ group coaching containers since I experienced them myself. Also, what I would love to do is to do a live in person course/conference like TED which combines fun (travel!) and learning. Perhaps there are some ways you can do something you love personally (ex. wellness, yoga retreat) , along with professional development (communication, leadership, etc.). One course I watched online that was very helpful was about the Nonviolent Communication method.Thought to share some of my personal experience/preferences for some perspective.

lydianichols·Oct 28, 2021

I love the idea of using 1:1 or group coaching. I've typically thought about learning budgets as limited to continuing education courses or books, but I can see how the coaching is perhaps even more impactful in personal and professional development!

stephaniecn·Oct 28, 2021

I used mine on a leadership training.

Lisbeth153·Oct 28, 2021

I have an education budget at work, too...and we're discouraged from using it. "Can you say again how this is immediately applicable to the current work we're doing," "Please be prepared to give a presentation detailing how what you learned will benefit the company, or pay back the cost," and so on. We have to do this even for individual books we want to buy. (Of course, the engineers get a pass on this. They just have to say, "I'm going to SIGGRAPH" or "I'm buying this" and it all goes through.)My takeaway is that during the interview process at companies that offer professional development or education funds, I'm going to ask for more detail on how and when those can be used.