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The field of engineering requires quality assurance. Whatever their discipline, engineers have to create and build often complicated products. Sometimes, they review their designs and the end results themselves in order to make sure everything is functioning as it should; in other cases, that work is a separate job performed specifically by a quality assurance engineer.

Brands are all around us, although most people probably don’t consciously think about their impact. But the biggest brands all have instantly recognizable elements. Take Nike, for instance: That name is synonymous with their famous “swoosh,” which the company has used since 1971. Or, if you hear something about Tiffany’s, you’ll likely picture the particular blue shade of their boxes, a color they trademarked in 1998 so that no one else can use it. These are just two well-known examples of ways that branding links products to a company.

When Extension Engine Media Producer Savannah Gillespie began ordering clothes from popular online retailer Reformation about eight years ago, she noticed something unexpected about their brand. All of their communication with their customers had a breezy, humorous tone. Their packaging contained messages like, “Hey, babe, you look fine today,” and their emails employed similar fun, casual language. This approach fit well with the company’s overall brand as an eco-friendly sustainable fashion label and appealed to the (mostly) young women who bought their clothing. But at the time, their branding approach was unusual enough to catch Savannah’s attention.

Who should provide learning to those who want it? This question seems straightforward, but it isn’t. The traditional list includes colleges, universities, and other types of schools, along with a few well-established learning providers like Khan Academy and Coursera. If you’re already familiar with online learning, you might also think of organizations that teach specialized content, like Duolingo for foreign languages or HubSpot for both learning and executing marketing strategies, and educational publishers who provide online content as well as books, like Pearson Education and McGraw Hill.

The classroom environment is familiar to most everyone, although the types of classrooms you’ve experienced may differ. Whether participating online or in person, whether teaching or receiving instruction, you’ve had to decide how to approach learning. Are new things exciting challenges to master or scary obstacles to overcome?