Many times we don’t realize it, but the learning & training system has undergone great changes in recent years thanks to the development of new technologies and, of course, there is still more news to see. A good example of something that has changed the learning system around the world is the Udacity platform, to which we are going to dedicate this article. We will focus more on what Udacity is and why it is a best tech learning platform.
For you who are looking for new opportunities to evolve in your studies and consequently your career, continue reading this article and understand:
– A new concept of higher education that has already helped thousands of people in their projects.
– A new platform that teaches technical skills that are required by companies today.
What is Udacity?
Udacity is an EdTech company created from an experiment at Stanford University, where founders Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig offered free “Introduction to AI(Artificial Intelligence)” courses. After seeing a massive result in an experiment, with more than 160,000 registered students, the company was founded in 2011 by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens, and Mike Sokolsky.
The project was born out of the free AI classes offered by Stanford University and today it has important sources of funding, such as venture capital firms Charles River Ventures and Andreessen
Horowitz.
Today the platform has hundreds of courses created in partnership with big tech companies such as Google, Amazon, AT&T, and Facebook, etc.
A few years later, Udacity launched its Nanodegree program, which is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
Why Udacity
The Nanodegree course provided by udacity will prepare you for the profession you want to pursue and will only teach you things that will specialize you in that area. Do you want to be a Full Stack developer? Only the subjects that will make a difference in your career will be transmitted to you. Is being a data analyst your dream? You will specialize in that and that’s it. Forget spending four years in a classroom studying boring classes and facing unprepared or charismatic teachers. An article on a complete evaluation of Udacity has listed out few reasons why Nanodegrees are worth it. Let’s discuss them in detail.
7 reasons to start your Nanodegree now
1. Dynamic classes
Learning can be tedious and exhausting at times, especially those hour-long lessons that make you lose after five minutes of listening. One thing I love about Udacity is that the classes are divided into short videos of no more than four minutes and while it may seem too short, it makes the experience that much better. If you feel tired, you can stop between videos to recharge. Also, at the end of almost every class, there is a quiz to establish knowledge.
2. Strong partners
When you start your Nanodegree at Udacity, you will not learn courses created by Professor only. The courses are run with partners you may not know, such as GitHub, Facebook, NVidia, Mercedes-Benz, and Amazon. The Web Developer and Full Stack courses, for example, were held in partnership with Google, where there are cases of former students who currently work at the giant.
3. International recognition
The international market recognizes Udacity as an important educational institution. Many of the students who have already joined the platform today work at coveted Silicon Valley companies. A lot of people changed their life after doing a Nanodegree at Udacity.
4. Amazing courses
In the Nanodegree program, I saw that everything I needed was synthesized in one place, which was great for my studies. The Data Analyst Nanodegree is excellent because I learned how to clean data, visualize it and even apply Machine Learning concepts. All of this without a hitch. And the same goes for the other courses – which, by the way, are incredible. It has Virtual Reality Nanodegree, Machine Learning, Full Stack, Develop Android, and even Autonomous Car Engineering.
5. Affordable price
Today, the values of the Nanodegree courses are, on average, $200 per month. This value is very small if we compare a university, in addition to taking less time and recovering half of your money in the previous condition. To make us even happier, the folks at Udacity often offer some discount coupons, which make the values drop 25%. To get your coupon, just keep an eye on the Udacity Facebook page or watch the various webinars they run throughout the year.
6. Career tracking
The comparison between Udacity x Universities that I am doing throughout the post is boring, after all, it is unfair for Universities, which have no chance. Another factor that differentiates Udacity from traditional forms of teaching is career pursuit.
When you start your Nanodegree, you will not be thrown into a jungle and you will not turn around to survive. You will also be advised by professionals on how to develop your resume, cover letter, Linkedin profile, and Github.
Udacity courses
Udacity has around 200 courses that are completely free (but don’t offer a certificate). These courses are usually created as part of the paid micro-credential offered by Udacity called Nanodegree.
Udacity courses are being renewed and expanded and currently, we can find courses related to the following topics:
- Android
- Analysis of data
- Data science
- Programming
- iOS
- Robotics
- Mobile app development
- Software
- Virtual reality
- Web design
- Non-technological courses
Within each category, there is a wide group of courses between free and Nanodegrees, organized according to whether they are intended for beginners, people with an intermediate level of knowledge on the subject of the course, or students with advanced knowledge.
Conclusion: There will always be a gap between what is learned in a classroom, traditional or virtual, and what is needed in daily work. Things happen very fast in the world of software development. They share this gap at Udacity and do a great job of minimizing it, working closely with recruiters from the software companies who hire the most people around the world.
