I know Valentine’s day is still more than a month out, but Lynda, you make me so happy. Our conversations are always delightful, and you always have something new to show me. You are always by my side, and make a heck of a travel companion. I cannot count the number of times you have saved my skin when working on a deadline.
Alright, alright… before my wife gets too upset about “the other woman,” let me level with you. Lynda.com is one of my all-time favorite tutorial websites. In fact, my wife and I are both big fans of Lynda.com. When I first discovered the site back in 2006, there were dozens of helpful courses. In 2015, there are now thousands. While there is definitely a bias for media production on the site, courses cover business, architecture, and IT as well.
A search on Jan 8 reveals:
- 62 courses related to Wordpress
- 822 courses related to User Experience
- 355 Photoshop courses
- 2,380 courses relating to “video”
- 9 Writing Courses
- 3 courses on setting up a recording studio.
- 45 HTML courses
- 14 courses on “Facebook” (and you thought you were an expert already?)
When Lynda.com says “courses” they’re referring to a series of tutorials that may run anywhere from 20 minutes to 18 hours. If you want to gain competency in any media subject, you can do it by creating your own curriculum. For instance, I wanted to learn how to produce, film, and edit a documentary film, but didn’t go to film school. Here’s a list of the core courses that I combined to accomplish my learning needs:
- Foundations of Video: Cameras and Shooting with Anthony Artis
- Video Production Techniques: Location Lighting with Anthony Artis
- Video Production Techniques: Location Audio Recording with Anthony Artis
- Foundations of Video: Interviews with Anthony Artis
- Foundations of Video: The Art of Editing with Norman Hollyn
- Documentary Editing in Premiere Pro with Jason Osder
Other courses were borrowed from as well, and several books referenced, but I accomplished my first documentary film with it. Before you ask, the film was a birthday gift for my dying mom. It is not online, but that’s the best part of Lynda.com… you can learn what you want for personal OR professional goals. And it’s WAY cheaper than college tuition. At $45 a month for premium subscription, that’s roughly 1/100 the cost of a private school education. The funny part? Even top-tier schools are incorporating Lynda.com tutorials into their curricula. Our school, American University, has a free subscription for each student. Lynda makes the case for super-expensive universities a hard sell. If I didn’t have the Post-911 GI bill on my side… I’m not sure I could’ve justified the cost of going back to school.
But the big difference between online sites and schools is the transcript and credentialing, right? Lynda.com has implemented a badge system where completed courses can be posted to your LinkedIn account. Is it equivalent to a college transcript? No, but it is a 3rd Party verification to potential employers demonstrating your subjects of interest. That alone is worth the price of admission.
If you’re the type of person that loves continuing your education and learning new things, this website is a must. It has almost replaced Netflix in my home as the go-to-destination for passive media engagement. On my iPad, iPhone, laptop, and Apple TV, you can find evidence of Lynda’s presence. Thank God I don’t have to buy her flowers or chocolates 
