
Two Years, Four Nanodegree Programs, and a New Career - gabor-meszaros
https://blog.udacity.com/2018/11/two-years-four-nanodegree-programs-and-a-new-career.html
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kyle_martin1
Great job Ricardo!

I took the 9-month Self-Driving Car Nanodegree and managed to find a job in
the AV industry right before graduating.

I found the ND worth every penny because they broke down really dense topics
that you’d usually need to be in a MS program at CMU or Stanford to undertake.
Now I’m leading AV development at my current employer!

Like any course or degree, they can’t cover everything. That’s ok though,
because you’ve learned enough to continue learning by reading current academic
papers. You must be motivated though.

There’s a lot of nay-sayers on HN. I’d encourage you to ignore their excuses
for not completing their ND. Usually these people don’t have enough grit or
motivation to do something hard. If you really want it...you’ll work hard and
persevere to get it.

~~~
povertyworld
I did the Android nanodegree, and have never had so much as an interview. I
think people's success after Udacity is largely determined by their
educational background before Udacity. For example, the article is ambiguous
about whether the student finished his computer engineering degree at
university or not. I have a non-STEM degree.

On the other hand, seeing comments from people who dropped out of nanodegrees
makes me consider that maybe it's a little more difficult than it seems.
Moreover, the job market for mobile is just bad. It's either six figure
rockstar, or unemployment. I think doing one of the javascript ones might have
produced better job prospects.

At this point, I'm resigned to indie development while I work a part time non-
tech non-profit job to make rent. Currently working on a MacOS desktop app
that might make a few bucks, but probably not.

~~~
kyle_martin1
I used to do mobile development. You need a strong portfolio to compete. I had
made around 6 apps (some my ideas and some for clients) when I got my first
mobile job. Consider making some _novel_ apps without any expectation of being
paid. Nothing guarantees you a job. If you’re not hearing back...there’s got
to be a logical reason. Be honest with yourself and come up with a list of 25
things that will give you an edge and start doing them. Just don’t give up!

Regarding the education comment...I’m going to disagree with you there.
Employers don’t care where you went to school. They care about what you’ve
done in the past (doesn’t matter if it’s at work or on the side) and what you
can bring to the table. I had to compete with people with PhDs for my current
AV job but I got the job because of the whole package of skills that I bring
rather than theoretical knowledge in a single niche topic.

~~~
Judgmentality
> Employers don’t care where you went to school.

This depends on the employer. Google is notorious for not only caring about
your school, but your GPA. Also as someone who has looked at hundreds, if not
thousands, of resumes over the years - the reality is you very quickly start
to look for any sort of signal and schools are definitely something some (I
would guess most) consider.

Do I think it's unfair? Sure. But recruiters simply do not have the time to
look into every applicant with any sort of detail.

~~~
physcab
I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve worked at a couple FANGs and I have never looked
at a candidates resume beyond their last job or two. I only look at their
degree to calculate years of experience in my head. But ultimately we put
faith in our interview process more than a resume. I would totally hire
someone who has relevant experience than what their degrees were (or any), as
long as they passed the normal interview gauntlet that everyone takes.

~~~
zaptheimpaler
Engineers typically don't care so much about school, but the first filter is
recruiters who do. A recruiter has <10s to read your resume and has no
technical knowledge, so a good school or FANG on your resume helps you pass
their screen.

~~~
sh87
years of mostly pointless assignments, lectures and pre-test cramming coupled
with thousands of hard earned dollars spent on getting <10s of attention from
a recruiter. Feels harsh, strange and unproductive enough to be true.

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greydius
I tried doing a nanodegree but quit after a month. The two main reasons:

\- the videos are not lectures; they're short, scripted segments. While the
production is polished, I found the format irritating. I much prefer actual
recorded lectures like the many wonderful (and free) ones available from MIT

\- the programming assignments were not challenging. I didn't really feel like
I gained anything from them.

~~~
povertyworld
I think the point of Udacity, or at least why I did Udacity, is to get some
kind of credential to get past HR gatekeepers (which did not work). I didn't
do it to learn. I already taught myself Swift and iOS, and I'm sure I could
have taught myself Android too, but I wanted some kind of credential, and I
can't afford to get another degree.

You know all of those videos are optional? You can just skip the intermediary
assignments if they are too easy, and go right to the final project in each
section, which is the only part that is graded anyways. Also, the last project
is a portfolio piece of your own design, so you can make it as hard as you
want as long as it meets certain criteria.

~~~
nwsm
>get past HR gatekeepers (which did not work)

Were you able to switch jobs/careers at all eventually?

~~~
povertyworld
No.

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KKKKkkkk1
Of the people who start a nanodegree, how many finish? Of the people who
finish, how many accomplish the expected career goal? I'm asking because
Udacity is starting to feel a lot like it's replicating the gym industry's
business model.

~~~
lsc
I think that the prestigious college model of only letting in people who they
know have a 90+% chance of making it is damaging to socioeconomic mobility;
there's a lot of us who have, maybe, closer to a 50% chance, who know this and
would be happy to buy the lottery ticket in question, but it's not available
for sale.

I understand the need to prevent people from spending money they can't afford
on a degree they can't get, but personally think a weeder class would be a
much more fair way to go about doing that filtering.. make me pass a few
really hard classes before signing up for the degree program.

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brandonhall
I have no particular insight to add, but simply wanted to say this is an
absolutely wonderful story. A person with poor economic prospects took control
and changed their life. Beautiful.

~~~
jamestimmins
Agreed! It's so impressive how hard he worked and what he accomplished by
keeping with it for two whole years.

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mrleinad
Is it just me, or is someone else seeing posts like these pop up everywhere,
and all reference Udacity's nanodegrees?

I know this one is in the Udacity site itself, but I've seen similar posts in
other websites. Maybe they're actively advertising it via viral blog posts?

~~~
thanatropism
Have you hired a marketing firm recently?

They all offer to generate fluff pieces in fluff piece blogs (also without
official branding) and SEO the heck out of them.

~~~
mrleinad
I'm as far from marketing as I can be, but good to know that. Didn't know it
was something they offered.

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throwawayjava
Woah! Two years of education changes someone's life!

...if only community colleges and branch campuses of state universities had VC
marketing cash, we would hear these uplifting stories on the daily.

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jammygit
I've always found udacity courses to be well designed. I wish the nanodegrees
didn't have those fixed start times though, and I wish it was pay by course
rather than pay by month. Still, very good experiences.

~~~
dominotw
> I wish it was pay by course rather than pay by month.

Udacity is pay by nanodegree. Coursera is pay by month.

~~~
ninkendo
If you don't finish a Udacity nanodegree on time you lose access to the
material and you have to pay again. It's certainly pay per month.

~~~
dominotw
no its not. You have option to pay mothly with affirm but I don't think thats
what u r referring to

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mariselabbe
I’m really proud of how capable he was to succeed in life without having too
much. A guy like him deserves more opportunities

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hnuser355
I want to do a 12 year gigadegree that is structured from undergrad to
doctoral program to postdoc(s)

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adolfobrice23
This is a hell of a victory, great job ricardo, more good things are comming!

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helimey
absolutely amazing! I don't see transformations like this very often. I hope
he receive as much opportunities as he deserves, so he can achieve his goals.
Well done

