​Nanodegrees are now available online & globally.

by The REJIGIT Blog


Online learning has become a normal and acceptable means of education delivery. Employment has evolved into something quite different from the traditional job market and industry has become very particular about the skills required of employees. The nature of job descriptions in the modern world continues to change at pace and for those who wish to stay ahead of the pack, Udacity is an ideal educational solution.

Udacity’s mission plan is “to teach basic programming so that young people don’t necessarily have to bother with college before taking an entry-level job. It’s a more focused education with less time wasted. Students can achieve a nano-degree quickly, secure a job and then maybe do it again at a later date for retraining purposes.”

Udacity, Inc. was founded in 2010 by three roboticists who believed much of the educational value of their university classes could be offered online at very low cost. A few weeks thereafter, more than 160,000 students in more than 190 countries had enrolled in their first class, “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence.”

Sebastian Thrun (born1967) is an educator, programmer, robotics developer and computer scientist who specialises in the field of artificial intelligence. He continues to serve as co-founder and C.E.O. of Udacity which he co-founded with David Stavens and Mike Sokolsky in 2010. He is also the C.E.O. of Kitty Hawk Corporation (development of a single seater autonomous aircraft). He was previously a Google Vice President and a Google Fellow, together with a Research Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University’s School of Computer Science. He remains an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University and at Georgia Institute of Technology.

At Google, he founded Google X (X Development LLC is a semi-secret research and development facility and organization operated by Google) and Google's self-driving car team. He is known for his work on probabilistic algorithms for robotics.

https://www.udacity.com/

Udacity’s Nanodegree Programs start at US$399 per month. By way of a comparison the yearly tuition fees for a Computer Science bachelor degree at a major New Zealand University would be NZ$6300 – NZ$7300 dependent on a student’s majoring subject and over a study period of three years.

Udacity graduates are working at companies like Google, Accenture, AT&T, Amazon, Salesforce, Rakuten, Verizon, Goldman Sachs, and Intuit etc.

Udacity Blockchain Developer program is an example of the many programs they offer. It runs for a four month period @ ten hours per week. The program encompasses Etherium Blockchain. Blockchain Architecture and Data Auditing.

Course 1: Blockchain fundamentals.

Course 2: Etherium Smart Contracts, Tokens and DAPPS (Decentralized Apps).

Course 4: DAPP with autonomous Smart Contracts & Oracles (third-party services which connects smart contracts with the outside world).

Course 5. Capstone Project. Use skills acquired to build a decentralised property listing application.

....Represent ownership of property using ZK-SNARK (Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge). A ZK-SNARK is a cryptographic proof which allows one party to prove it possesses certain information without revealing that information.

....Mint tokens to represent your claim to the property and make the tokens available for sale on blockchain marketplace.

1. Data Engineer: Learn to design data models, build data warehouses and data lakes, automate data pipelines, and work with massive datasets. Duration : 5 months, 5-10 hours per week.

2. Data Scientist: Work on projects designed by industry experts, and learn to run data pipelines, design experiments, build recommendation systems, and deploy solutions to the cloud. Duration : 4 months, 10 hours per week.

3. Data Analyst: Use Python, SQL and Statistics to advance your programming skills and refine your ability to work with messy, complex datasets. Duration : 4 months, 10 hours per week.

4. Product Manager: Envision and lead the product strategy of industry-defining products, and learn to successfully bring them to market. Influence the execution of product development as a Product Manager, one of the most highly-coveted roles in technology. Duration : 4 months, 10 hours per week.

5. Digital Marketing: Gain real-world experience running live campaigns as you learn from top experts in the field. Launch your career with a 360-degree understanding of digital marketing. Duration : 3 months, 10 hours per week.

Udacity Digital Marketing Nanodegree overview;

Tools: Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Facebook Ad Manager, Google’s PageSpeed, SEMrush, MOZ, MailChimp. The program is structured around core digital marketing sectors that provide good foundations into digital marketing landscape:

The Digital Marketing Nanodegree program covers Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Advertising, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Display Advertising, Email Marketing, Google Analytics.

Projects to complete:

Prepare to Market: develop a target persona, formulate marketing objective and KPI.

Market your Content: write a blog post and promote it via social posts.

Run a Facebook Ad Campaign Part 1: create a campaign and run it.

Run a Facebook Ad Campaign Part 2: analyse results and provide recommendations.

Conduct a SEO Audit: recommend a target keyword list and how to optimize for ranking in search engine results.

Run an AdWords Campaign Part 1: create a campaign & run it.

Run an AdWords Campaign Part 2: analyse results and provide recommendations.

Evaluate a Display Campaign: analyse results and provide recommendations.

Market with Email: develop email plan, create email with MailChimp and evaluate the results.

Create Digital Marketing Portfolio: develop a marketing budget and get all other projects together in one place.

6. Programming with Python: Learn the programming fundamentals required for a career in data science. By the end of the program, you will be able to use Python, SQL, Command Line, and Git. Duration : 3 months, 10 hours per week.

7. Deep Learning: Become an expert in neural networks, and learn to implement them using the deep learning framework PyTorch. Duration : 4 months, 12 hours per week.

8. Full Stack Web Developer: Design and develop modern web applications. Students will also learn how to deploy a Flask-based web application to the cloud using Docker and Kubernetes. Duration : 4 months, 5-10 hours per week.

9. Machine Learning Engineer: Learn advanced machine learning techniques and algorithms — including how to package and deploy your models to a production environment. Duration : 4 months, 5-10 hours per week.

10. Artificial Intelligence for Trading: Complete real-world projects designed by industry experts, covering topics from asset management to trading signal generation. Master AI algorithms for trading, and build your career-ready portfolio. Duration : 6 months, 10 hours per week.

11. C++: Learn C++, a high-performance programming language used in the world’s most exciting engineering jobs — from self-driving cars and robotics, to web browsers, media platforms, servers and video games. Duration : 4 months, 10 hours per week.

12. Front End Web Developer: Learn how to build high quality websites and dynamic applications to create stunning user experiences for the web. Duration : 4 months, 5-10 hours per week.

13. Business Analytics: In this program, you will learn foundational data skills that apply across functions and industries. You will learn to analyse data and build models with Excel, query databases using SQL, and create informative data visualizations with Tableau. Duration : 3 months, 10 hours per week.

14. Intro to Programming: Learn fundamental skills used in web development, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python. Duration : 4 months, 10 hours per week.

15. UX Designer: Design impactful user experiences for products in today’s digital world. Build a portfolio that showcases your ability to transform user research to high-fidelity interactive designs. Duration : 3 months, 10 hours per week.