Making a decision about your education, your career, and your future is one of the biggest life choices you can make, and enrolling in a Nanodegree program is exactly that kind of decision—it’s about about your education, your career, and your future. You don’t choose lightly, and it’s important you have a clear understanding of what’s involved. So how does a Nanodegree program work?
If you visit Udacity.com and click the Nanodegree link, you’ll come to what we call our “Nanodegree hub page.” Here, you’ll see how we organize our programs into Schools, to help you find the right program for you. But if you want to know how all Nanodegree programs work in general, read on!
This should give you a good sense of the process, but let’s dig a little deeper into these steps, and understand what they really mean, and what they really entail.
Choose Your Nanodegree Program
In simplest form, when we say “Choose your Nanodegree Program,” what we’re really saying is, “Choose your career.” Every program we create—even the beginner programs—is informed by an understanding of the careers you’ll be preparing for, and every aspect of the Nanodegree experience is designed to support your ultimate emergence as the most in-demand version of yourself that you can be.
“In today’s world, technical skills belong to no field.”
Does that mean you have to know “what you want to be when you grow up” before you enroll in a Nanodegree program? Of course not! In today’s world, technical skills belong to no field. Finance, healthcare, entertainment, education, marketing, retail, security—there is virtually no field that does not count among its needs talented individuals who possess cutting-edge, up-the-the-minute technical skills. So no, you don’t have to know the specific job you want, but you should have a clear sense of what you want to do.
For example, consider Machine Learning. Enter it as a job search term on LinkedIn, and you’ll find positions at Pandora (music/entertainment), Netflix (movies/entertainment), Jawbone (consumer electronics), Amazon (retail), NVIDIA (visual computing), Facebook (social media), AirBnB (travel/lodging), WalMart (e-commerce), VMWare (cloud computing), and countless more. There’s even a Machine Learning role currently open at … LinkedIn!
The point is, you don’t have to know in advance that you want to work at WalMart or AirBnB. And you don’t even have to know that you want to work in cloud computing or e-commerce. What you DO need to know, is that you want to use Machine Learning skills in your job.
And so that’s how you choose your Nanodegree program. You choose the program that teaches the skills you want to learn, so you can do the things you want to do. Don’t worry yet about where you’re going to do them, or what the role is you’re going to fill. Just focus on the skills.
Enjoy immediate support and reviews
One of the great things about the Nanodegree experience is that it begins immediately. From the moment you enroll, you can begin your project work right away, or you can first spend some time with our support team getting familiar with communications, operations, resources, and opportunities. Either way, you’re going to be connected, and supported. And from the moment you do submit a project, you’ll start receiving in-depth, timely, rigorous, personalized, expert reviews of your work. These reviews will challenge and affirm you both, and most of all, they’ll provide you with actionable feedback designed to push you forward. Everything is there right away. Just login with your student credentials, and the Udacity world is at your fingertips.
Join an amazing community
There are no barriers to connection at Udacity. Udacity mentors are there from day one. They’re there to answer questions, and point to resources. They’re there to help you overcome challenges, and celebrate achievements.
“There are no barriers to connection at Udacity.“
Your peers are available too—accessible, supportive, and excited to meet you. You can engage with other students via messages and forums. This peer community is very real, and very powerful. Here’s an example that illustrates how powerful the Udacity student community can be—learn what happens with a group of developers who met as Udacity students decides to take on a very important real-world problem:
Harnessing Nanodegree Power To Solve World Problems!
Graduate with a valued credential
A credential is validated evidence of achievement. It is confirmation that a set of skills has been mastered, an array of challenges has been met, and a suite of projects has been completed.
At Udacity, we offer skills-based, project-oriented curricula, and graduates of our Nanodegree programs earn a credential that affirms the skills they’ve mastered and the projects they’ve completed. This credential derives its ultimate value in two key ways:
- Curriculum development partnerships with influential companies such as Google, AT&T, Facebook, Salesforce, Cloudera, and more, serve to ensure the validity of the Nanodegree credential as a recognized affirmation of skills mastery and job readiness.
- Hiring partnerships with leading brands like Accenture, Microsoft, Priceline, Flipkart, Twilio, and more (including Google and AT&T, mentioned above), ensure that our graduates are consistently being seen by top companies.
Your Nanodegree credential is recognized by leading brands across the globe.
Land your dream job, launch your career!
Your Udacity experience does not end at graduation. We are not just committed to teaching you the skills you need to land your dream job. We’re committed to seeing you get that dream job. All Nanodegree students receive extensive career support, and we make sure you are ready to launch your job search with career coaching, interview prep, and the Udacity Talent Program.
Still not sure? Watch this video featuring one of our graduates, chronicling her journey to a dream job at Google.
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From enrollment to hired, we’re with you every step of the way. Ready to enroll? Great! Step one awaits!
