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Seth Weidman
UPDATE: A year after writing my first answer to this question, I am working as a Data Scientist at Trunk Club. The proof is in the pudding: the carefully curated content that Udacity includes in their Nanodegree courses do indeed teach you skills that are directly relevant to getting entry-level jobs in tech. I'm now much more certain than I was a year ago that Udacity Nanodegrees are a phenomenal option for people looking to break into the tech industry.
Here's how it worked for me: a year ago, the core of my job was doing analyses in Excel that were relevant to business decisions, making PowerPoints that summarized those analyses, and presenting them to key decision makers. An analytical job, but one that more and more will go away in the 21st century.
Now, my job is writing Python scripts that automate those analyses and do much more advanced ones like doing predictive modeling to figure out which customers will keep items we send them. I also package those scripts into deployable packages so other engineers can consume the functions that I've built. Very much a job of the future.
How did I make the switch? My foundation was the Udacity courses I took in the Data Analyst Nanodegree and the Intro to Machine Learning course. I can't emphasize this enough: Udacity does a phenomenal job of curating material that will make you valuable on day one of your tech job (or in any side projects you do: more on that below). For some concrete examples:
By contrast, in Coursera's Data Science Specialization, I learned a lot of interesting perspectives on data science and did some interesting projects, but a year later, I have forgotten most of it, simply because I haven't used it. Their data science courses are designed by Johns Hopkins professors. Udacity's are designed by Google and Facebook.
One caveat: if you just sit alone in your apartment and diligently work through your Udacity Nanodegree courses, you probably won't get a tech job, even if your GitHub is impressive. A couple other things that I've found that immensely were:
Nevertheless, finding a new job does involve some hustle and a lot of luck, in addition to just "learning the skills". Udacity knows this, of course, and I know they are working hard to help their graduates find jobs - as evidence of how high a priority this is for them, they just launched a job guarantee program for their Nanodegree Plus students here: https://www.udacity.com/nanodegr....
So, if you're interested in starting to work in tech, I tell people, and now with more confidence than ever, there's no better place to start than with Udacity.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked part time, and remotely from Chicago, for Udacity from April-December 2015 - beginning after writing the previous answer and ending before writing this one. It was mostly a "passion project": I graded student projects, answered questions on forums, held one-on-one coding chats with students, and a did few other things, working 15-20 hours/week. They paid me hourly. I run the Chicago Udacity Group but do not get paid for that either. Working there was inspiring as it let me see firsthand how much they care about their students' being successful and their content being both excellent and relevant to current industry trends.
--
I'm three months in to Udacity's 10 month data analyst nanodegree program. I have found it to be extremely well-designed and thought-through; it is as good of an online program as I have come across.
Pros
As with other Udacity courses, the content itself is excellent. Clearly the makers of the individual courses have thought backwards from "What do we want our students to know?" all the way through to how best to teach the students the content.
The lectures are engaging. The exercises are at an appropriate level of difficulty and are well-motivated. Each of the five projects you'll complete as part of the nanodegree is interesting, instructive, and would make a good addition to a GitHub portfolio.
Joe Falkson also vouches for the quality of another Udacity degree program here: Is it worth paying for a data analyst nanodegree?
What really sets Udacity's program apart from others (like Coursera's), however, is the support they give you outside of just teaching data science skills. They set up "office hours" where you can ask questions about the nanodegree, provide resources on how to conduct informational interviews, and identify data science sites that those looking to break into the industry should read frequently. In addition the user community is robust and helpful.
Overall, I haven't felt lost, I feel like I can get help when I've needed it, and I have felt motivated to continue.
Cons
The nanodegree program, along with all nontraditional certification programs (such as the Coursera Data Science Specialization, which I have also complete all the classes for), is unproven. Employers may simply not know enough about the program to trust it yet over, say, the University of Washington program that another poster mentioned. So, as much as I like the program, I don't think there's evidence yetto support a claim that completing the degree is guaranteed to get you a job as a data analyst at a tech firm.
Still, if any company can overcome this problem and get employers to take its certifications seriously, it will probably be Udacity. It is one of the more mainstream online certification programs - Marco Rubio mentioned Udacity by name it in an interview on The Daily Show a few weeks ago - and their instructors by and large are people who come from the kind of places that Udacity students want to work, like Facebook and AirBNB.
More on this topic here: How seriously are Udacity nanodegrees taken in the industry? Are the hiring managers for tech firms able to shed any light?
And of course, the cost. Access to nanodegree content is $200/month, and the program takes about 10 months to complete, for a total cost of around $2,000.
Who would benefit most from it
I work in strategy consulting - now internally for a credit card company - so I have very little programming experience in my job (though I have a lot from working on MOOCs), though I have a background in statistics and a solid quantitative foundation. The program therefore will actually take me 10 months; on the other hand, it will all be new programming knowledge and techniques that build off of the analytic foundation I have already. If you have a background similar to this, the program is good for you, though it will take you the full 10 months.
If you're already an experienced programmer, and have a GitHub repository full of projects, you can actually just complete the five projects, pay for a couple months of the nanodegree, and get the certification from Udacity -that's all you have to do the complete the degree. Or, you could just start applying to tech jobs!
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UPDATE: A year after writing my first answer to this question, I am working as a Data Scientist at Trunk Club. The proof is in the pudding: the carefully curated content that Udacity includes in their Nanodegree courses do indeed teach you skills that are directly relevant to getting entry-level jobs in tech. I'm now much more certain than I was a year ago that Udacity Nanodegrees are a phenomenal option for people looking to break into the tech industry.
Here's how it worked for me: a year ago, the core of my job was doing analyses in Excel that were relevant to business decisions, making PowerPoints that summarized those analyses, and presenting them to key decision makers. An analytical job, but one that more and more will go away in the 21st century.
Now, my job is writing Python scripts that automate those analyses and do much more advanced ones like doing predictive modeling to figure out which customers will keep items we send them. I also package those scripts into deployable packages so other engineers can consume the functions that I've built. Very much a job of the future.
How did I make the switch? My foundation was the Udacity courses I took in the Data Analyst Nanodegree and the Intro to Machine Learning course. I can't emphasize this enough: Udacity does a phenomenal job of curating material that will make you valuable on day one of your tech job (or in any side projects you do: more on that below). For some concrete examples:
- In Intro to Data Science I learned how to to analyze and visualize data in Pandas, a widely used Python library
- I learned how to implement statistical tests (and just read documentation and learn on my own) in SciKit Learn, another Python library
- I learned how to build, test, and refine basic machine learning algorithms in SciKit Learn
By contrast, in Coursera's Data Science Specialization, I learned a lot of interesting perspectives on data science and did some interesting projects, but a year later, I have forgotten most of it, simply because I haven't used it. Their data science courses are designed by Johns Hopkins professors. Udacity's are designed by Google and Facebook.
One caveat: if you just sit alone in your apartment and diligently work through your Udacity Nanodegree courses, you probably won't get a tech job, even if your GitHub is impressive. A couple other things that I've found that immensely were:
- Lots of networking. I ended up getting the Trunk Club job through going to a Meetup every week or 2 for a few months here in Chicago, meeting people, and telling them I was interested in Data Science. Eventually, one thing led to another and here I am.
- Doing freelance projects, for free if you have to. For example, if you're going through the Data Analyst Nanodegree, find a local startup and tell them you'll analyze their data for free and produce some basic visualizations of what's going on (I did this exact thing). It will be absolutely invaluable experience and will build confidence that, yes, just with what you are learning through Udacity, you can add a significant amount of value to a company.
Nevertheless, finding a new job does involve some hustle and a lot of luck, in addition to just "learning the skills". Udacity knows this, of course, and I know they are working hard to help their graduates find jobs - as evidence of how high a priority this is for them, they just launched a job guarantee program for their Nanodegree Plus students here: https://www.udacity.com/nanodegr....
So, if you're interested in starting to work in tech, I tell people, and now with more confidence than ever, there's no better place to start than with Udacity.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked part time, and remotely from Chicago, for Udacity from April-December 2015 - beginning after writing the previous answer and ending before writing this one. It was mostly a "passion project": I graded student projects, answered questions on forums, held one-on-one coding chats with students, and a did few other things, working 15-20 hours/week. They paid me hourly. I run the Chicago Udacity Group but do not get paid for that either. Working there was inspiring as it let me see firsthand how much they care about their students' being successful and their content being both excellent and relevant to current industry trends.
--
I'm three months in to Udacity's 10 month data analyst nanodegree program. I have found it to be extremely well-designed and thought-through; it is as good of an online program as I have come across.
Pros
As with other Udacity courses, the content itself is excellent. Clearly the makers of the individual courses have thought backwards from "What do we want our students to know?" all the way through to how best to teach the students the content.
The lectures are engaging. The exercises are at an appropriate level of difficulty and are well-motivated. Each of the five projects you'll complete as part of the nanodegree is interesting, instructive, and would make a good addition to a GitHub portfolio.
Joe Falkson also vouches for the quality of another Udacity degree program here: Is it worth paying for a data analyst nanodegree?
What really sets Udacity's program apart from others (like Coursera's), however, is the support they give you outside of just teaching data science skills. They set up "office hours" where you can ask questions about the nanodegree, provide resources on how to conduct informational interviews, and identify data science sites that those looking to break into the industry should read frequently. In addition the user community is robust and helpful.
Overall, I haven't felt lost, I feel like I can get help when I've needed it, and I have felt motivated to continue.
Cons
The nanodegree program, along with all nontraditional certification programs (such as the Coursera Data Science Specialization, which I have also complete all the classes for), is unproven. Employers may simply not know enough about the program to trust it yet over, say, the University of Washington program that another poster mentioned. So, as much as I like the program, I don't think there's evidence yetto support a claim that completing the degree is guaranteed to get you a job as a data analyst at a tech firm.
Still, if any company can overcome this problem and get employers to take its certifications seriously, it will probably be Udacity. It is one of the more mainstream online certification programs - Marco Rubio mentioned Udacity by name it in an interview on The Daily Show a few weeks ago - and their instructors by and large are people who come from the kind of places that Udacity students want to work, like Facebook and AirBNB.
More on this topic here: How seriously are Udacity nanodegrees taken in the industry? Are the hiring managers for tech firms able to shed any light?
And of course, the cost. Access to nanodegree content is $200/month, and the program takes about 10 months to complete, for a total cost of around $2,000.
Who would benefit most from it
I work in strategy consulting - now internally for a credit card company - so I have very little programming experience in my job (though I have a lot from working on MOOCs), though I have a background in statistics and a solid quantitative foundation. The program therefore will actually take me 10 months; on the other hand, it will all be new programming knowledge and techniques that build off of the analytic foundation I have already. If you have a background similar to this, the program is good for you, though it will take you the full 10 months.
If you're already an experienced programmer, and have a GitHub repository full of projects, you can actually just complete the five projects, pay for a couple months of the nanodegree, and get the certification from Udacity -that's all you have to do the complete the degree. Or, you could just start applying to tech jobs!
See Questions On Quora
Continue reading...
