Look outside your window. Do you see the sun and the clear blue sky? Can you feel the warmth of the sun caressing your skin as you inhale the fresh air that’s reminiscent of our beautiful Mediterranean sea? Yes, summer is just round the corner.

After a year of work and studies, you can soon enjoy the golden beaches and the fun nightlife. If you’ve worked hard, then you deserve it. Some of you might also look for a summer job to finance a trip abroad.

In my student years, besides doing all of this, I would also try to enrich my knowledge by attending one of those short summer courses you never have time to sign up for during your scholastic year. You know, courses that you don’t have to do but that when you are done with your studying and looking for your full-time job, are considered an asset for the job you’re applying for.

Looking back, I sometimes regret not having attended some courses that my peers at the time took up. In fact, I highly recommend picking up a few new skills and certifications during your time off – it could be your investment in better job prospects and potentially higher earnings further down the line. It’s the ant attitude: gather all the knowledge you can during summer so that you can have a more comfortable, and potentially prosperous, winter.

Let’s assume that I’ve managed to sell you the idea to follow a course this summer, what are the options you can consider?

One course that is often seen as basic and taken for granted is the European Computer Driving Licence. I never took up the ECDL course and sometimes I regret not having done so. Most of my peers attended it because it looks good on your CV, but I was adamant that I would get by with the trial and error knowledge I have of Microsoft Office. I reasoned that I wouldn’t need the other tools – or so I thought.

I currently work as a content marketing specialist and, although to some it may seem like all I need is basic knowledge of Word and, maybe, Excel, it really doesn’t stop there. Every time I need to present a report or a pro-ject proposal to my superiors, I need to use PowerPoint. “It’s just PowerPoint not rocket science,” you would think. True, but if you’re a perfectionist like myself and want to achieve more from your slide than the average employee does, knowing how to make a sleek and smart presentation comes in handy.

Gather all the knowledge you can during summer so that you can have a more comfortable, and potentially prosperous, winter

Always think of ways how to stand out. When I need to use Excel to log data and I have to use formulas, I sometimes need to ask a colleague for help. This makes me feel limited and I have to download a PDF with all the Excel rules and formulas to learn. What I’m trying to say is, don’t underestimate the importance of these daily tools. There are numerous schools which offer ECDL training and basic summer courses so maybe it’s time to choose one.

If you’re a hardcore tech geek and want to do something a little bit more specialised and complex, maybe you should consider a short course in Java, C#, C++, .NET, HTML5 or any other programming language you think suits your present and future needs. It doesn’t necessarily have to be related to your full-time course or current job – it could be just something you do on the side.

Still on the IT and computing side, but more career-focused are Microsoft’s MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) certification courses. If you go on their website you’ll see that they have courses for server, desktop, applications, database and developer. I have some friends who work in IT who have followed a few of them as short courses in their free time and they strongly recommend it to anyone looking to improve their job prospects or advance their career in IT.

If these options are too specific and technical for you, maybe you should consider one of the CISCO courses, such as the CCENT (Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician) and CCT (Cisco Certified Technician). From the basic course you can then advance to the more professional courses such as the CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional) courses and further on to the expert courses such as the CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert) courses.

If you’re looking for a career in digital design, web design or photography, or these are just hobbies you enjoy and want to develop further, there are courses in Photoshop, Lightroom and other cool tools you can learn to use in depth. And still on the lines of something creative and geeky that can start as a hobby and turn into a career are the game development courses and competitions that are usually held around summer.

For the marketing geeks like myself who want to get more granular with their data, there are the Google Academy courses – which you can do online – such as the Google Analytics IQ and the Google AdWords certification.

Before you decide to attend anything, come up with a solid plan on what you want to get from this summer. Prioritise your plans and see how you’re going to divide your time per task. If attending a course is part of the plan, see what you want to achieve from it, do some searches online and then see which of the courses available can enable you to reach your goal. Once you’ve decided, apply and go for it.

That said, don’t forget that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and summer is ultimately there for you to take your much-deserved break. So make sure you balance it all out.