Early days
Companies
The Big Crisis
Philosophy & word of the founder
LearningTrain was founded in June 2003.
The goal was to help people develop new skills to allow them to do high-demand work in the graphic design and web design area. Read more below.
We focus on really helping students understand how to use Adobe software. This means a more 'scholarly' approach and no 'look things up on YouTube'. Instead, a more dedicated approach, and respect for each student's possibilities, is important here.
There was a conscious decision to not advertise to keep the groups smaller and more personal.
Since the groups are smaller, with up to 15 for the 'bigger groups', the training can be more personal and focused. This not only helps the students but the teacher, too: the educations and courses require homework which is personally corrected and revised so students learn as much as possible. This means a lot of time is spent on corrections, which is needed too.
Help between classes is always via email; this is great so you can look things up. Help via phone is only possible if you need urgent help; the phone calls are taken by teachers and having phonecalls with students takes away time from the classes. Rest assured: a phone call is rarely needed since the books are quite clear.
Due to the special start and roots of LearningTrain, the following is important to us:
When I started with LearningTrain I had a mission: to help people get a better life, make them feel useful and help them develop new skills to make that happen. When I started I just came out of a difficult period in my life. Little did I know an even more daunting period would arise. But the work gave me a lot of positive energy and working with the students gave me a lot of fun.
My goal was to make enough money to pay for the necessary things in life. I don't really need luxury items so my wishes are modest. As soon as I would have gathered enough I would start teaching for free. Well... with a request! What I really, really wanted was to teach the following way: the hours I spend on you, you spend on helping others. You can work in animal shelters for instance, in homes for the elderly, help in nature projects or help refugees for example. Anything is fine just so long it doesn't fit your own personal agenda and it should really all be about doing something you are not used to.
I have not reached this goal yet and may never reach it, but it is my mission to make the world a better and more beautiful place regardless.❧
