I just flaked out on another Coursera course. I thought this would be the time I stuck with it; I even paid for it in hopes I wouldn’t flake. But flake I did.

I’m still focused on upskilling, so I joined another online school, Treehouse. I’ve used them before to learn html and css basics. I love their UX and the entire feel of their learning experience. I’m surprised that feel matters so much to me – but then again learning environments matter offline, so why shouldn’t it matter online?

So I’m onto a new online learning platform, this time focusing on skills that I need right now. I’m taking their WordPress track as all my websites are hosted on WordPress. I can cobble together awesome themes pretty well but I have no idea how WordPress actually works and Treehouse has a robust track that dives into everything I need to know.

As I was pursuing courses I noticed Treehouse excels in another area: storytelling. More specifically, telling the stories of successful career changers. Making a shift to a new career is a daunting task: you have to obtain the skills and convince employers that you can do the job, the latter of which can be even harder than acquiring the new skills. Career changers struggle with doubt, lack of self-confidence, opaque career paths, and lack of knowledge about hiring companies and opportunities. Treehouse uses profiles to share stories from a wide range of people – former customer service specialists, laid off professionals, personal trainers, urban planners – from across the globe. Seeing diverse stories of successful career changers helps learners visualize themselves doing the same. It’s even possible it gives them a bit more confidence. As they read, they’re likely telling themselves, hey, if they can do it, I can do it too. 

Testimonials about impact are important for prospective online students. But the full stories that dive into the learning journey and offer advice serve a purpose too: to motivate career changers. Treehouse puts out a clear message to career changers: everyone’s doing it and you can to.

So bravo to Treehouse. Here’s hoping other online schools invest the time in career storytelling too.