
Ask HN: How would you spend a company provided learning budget? - fintwood
My company this year instituted a learning budget where they will 100% reimburse me for expenses up to a non-trivial amount of money. I can use this to do pretty much whatever (e.g. take classes online, take university classes, attend conferences, etc...). And this money is use-it-or-lose-it, so it&#x27;s not like they&#x27;ll just cut me a check for whatever I don&#x27;t spend. Just curious what the HN community would use the money for.<p>In particular, I&#x27;m looking for things that will actually make me more effective at work as opposed to resume padders. For context, I live in Chicago and work for a trading firm doing a mixture of C++ and Python development. My list so far includes the following, but I&#x27;d love to hear the community&#x27;s ideas:<p>- attending CPPCON specifically with an eye towards getting a better handle on some tools that I&#x27;m not as proficient in as I&#x27;d like to be (GDB and perf spring readily to mind).<p>- hiring a private tutor to better learn linear algebra and stochastic calculus<p>- signing up for Coursera courses on machine learning<p>Let me hear what you&#x27;ve got.
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JSeymourATL
No date announced yet, FTX18 in Chicago should be on your agenda>
[http://www.fintechchicago.com/](http://www.fintechchicago.com/)

If you aspire to a leadership role, an executive coach might be a smart play>
[http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4853.html](http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4853.html)

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fintwood
Both good recommendations, thanks! I hadn't heard of FTX. I'll likely be in
attendance.

