Including pottery, self-defence, digital marketing and cheese making.
A short course is a great way to get inspired. A range of places around Sydney and Melbourne offer short courses, day classes and workshops on everything from pickling and sausage making, to guitar. Want to learn something new but don’t know where to start? Consult this list.
Learn to Cook at Cornersmith
Cornersmith is a Melbourne-based school that specialises in cooking classes. If you’ve dreamed of committing a weekend to making fresh pasta, enrol in the Cornersmith’s popular pasta-making class. The pastry-making and home-cheese-making classes are other popular options.
Average price: $150–$200
New Life Skills at Work Shop
Work Shop holds classes in Sydney, Melbourne, Byron Bay and Brisbane. Ranging from Make a Pom Pom Rug, to Great Sex Matters, classes are social yet educational. Work-Shop is a great place to go when you’re feeling flat and want to learn a new skill that could become your next party trick. It also offers more real-world-skills such as guitar for beginners.
Average price: $20–$200
Learn a Language at the Centre for Adult Education
Melbourne’s CAE offers a range of courses to stimulate your brain. If you want to learn a language, this is the place. You can also dip into digital marketing, scriptwriting, textiles, jewellery making and photography. Most courses are taught by experts and will run for several weeks, making them a little more expensive.
Average price: $250–$350
Grammar at The Good Copy
Publisher The Good Copy offers Stop. Grammar Time, a two-day, intensive punctuation and grammar course. It’s for those looking to improve their writing, reading and editing. Classes are informal and highly educational – you are guaranteed to walk away having had a series of “ah-hah!”-moments. You might think you know grammar, but this course will show you how much you have to learn. Is this a sentence? Yes? No? Classes run in Sydney and Melbourne.
Average price: $350
Use the Pottery Wheel at Slow Clay
Slow Clay offers eight-week short courses and day workshops teaching ceramics, design and pottery skills. You could learn to use the pottery wheel, make wearable porcelain objects, or learn to shape clay by hand. Beginners and experienced potterers are welcome. Slow Clay is Melbourne-based, but those in Sydney should try The Pottery Shed.
Average price: $400
Get Fit at Kick PT
This St Kilda-based personal training studio offers free, monthly self-defence classes for women. The maximum class size is 14, so there is no overcrowding and the environment is welcoming. Kick PT doesn’t encouraging violence, but the workshop will equip you with an effective skill set if you ever need to protect yourself. Register online at Kick PT.
Average price: Free
Learn to Woodwork at Handsome and Co.
Handsome and Co. lets you expand on those basic skills you learned during high-school woodworking classes. It offers two courses – a fine woodworking course, and more intensive, personal-tutor woodworking sessions. Learning to create well-designed objects from fine wood is a rewarding experience, and for most people, worth the high price.
Average price: $500–$1000
Cook at Sausages Made Simple
One of Melbourne’s more eclectic options, Sausages Made Simple offers classes and workshops in salami making, prosciutto making, cheese making, wine making and cured-meat making. Learn methods and techniques that have been practiced, and mastered over generations at these classes that will tantalise your curiosity.
Average price: $150–$300
Honourable mentions:
General Assembly – workshops, events and classes in areas such as design, marketing, technology and data (Sydney and Melbourne).
Grown and Gathered – creative cooking, farming and preserving classes based on healthy food (Melbourne).
Melbourne Polytechnic College – courses in art, design, construction, hospitality and media among other trades (Melbourne).
North City 4 – jewellery making workshops, classes, seminars and short courses (Melbourne).
Tamsin’s Table – weekend table lunches and kitchen-harvest cooking classes (Victoria).
