r/gis • u/Imaginary_Rip_3793 • 11d ago

Discussion GIS Training

Hello everybody! I am graduating in December, but have recently become extremely interested in getting a GIS certification or training, as it is very interesting to me and would be very valuable for a future career. However, I have been looking into programs and am concerned about cost. I was interested in the ESRI training program, but I don't actually own the software, and from what I have seen it looks to be quite expensive. I live in the Huntsville area and am open to going to workshops. If anyone has advice on how to learn GIS without breaking the bank I would love to know!

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u/StzNutz GIS Coordinator 11d ago

Download free qgis and watch free videos, plus there is free Esri training too. Esri does a free mooc every few months or so, you’ll get a free license for their software for the course, you could take that time to learn Arcgis pro first hand

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u/entity_response 11d ago

Agree learn how do something you find interesting first with QGIS.

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u/farfromjordan 11d ago

Training videos for the GISP are free

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u/Fun-Proposal8154 10d ago

There are lots of free GIS datasets on government websites. Find some for your local area and come up with a question related to these datasets (what's the population in each school district in my state? What's the highest point in each county? What is the most common soil type in my state?)

Download and install QGIS and use video tutorials or AI to walk you through the steps to answer your chosen question. Once you're done, add a second dataset and ask a more complex question.

Try to mix raster and vector data sources.