SlickHandzAVN said:
UTPNCM is something id like to consider and atleast have available. The more options the better right? I disagree with better ways to spend time. If i can get educated and reimbursed while improving my career and creating more options for the future... is there really a downside?
No, I agree education/knowledge is always good, but just meant if all you want if a PER bump, there are probably other things that give you more bang for the buck on scoring then some random college/uni course. Depends on what rank and trade you are looking at, but generally speaking a second language profile is usually worth more points then anything else (for example).
Personally I'm a big proponent of lifelong learning, and if you have a specific goal in mind, then you may want to go a more formal route and have some kind of certificate on the other end. Equally valid though is just generally learning about stuff or how to do new things; that's the kind of thing that you can pick up from reading, asking someone to show you how to do it and practicing it, or the thousand other ways to pick things up. That can be trade specific or picking up a general CAF kind of skill (like learning something in DRMIS) or have absolutely nothing to do with the CAF and just be something you are interested in. So really all depends what you want to get out of it and what specifically you want to learn about for what may be the better option.
Not really sure what the current options are for things like ILP, but even if you are doing it on your own dime would recommend mentioning it to your CoC. There is a lot of flexibility to offer support in all kinds of ways that don't involve money, and have in the past done things like put them in touch with SMEs for help, helped edit papers, run through a sticking point on a lesson, and arrange for some short leave for an exam. Anything financial has very specific rules and authority levels, but the rest is discretionary, and in my experience people are as supportive as they can be.
Not sure if you've seen them, but there are a few universities that have free courseware. They may not include things like getting grades at the end, but if you want to learn about science/math, hard to beat MIT. I think the Open University even offers some course certificates, but not sure if that's just a participation one or if they actually do assignments and whatnot. There are even some decent courses on DLN, and depending where you are they may run some of those short seminar type courses. The ones on improving writing skills are always really useful.
MIT open courseware:
https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
Open University free courses:
http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/coronavirus#free