
Ask HN: Self Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree - hpagey
I received an email yesterday morning that I was accepted into the self driving car engineer nano degree program. Has anyone else gotten into this program? Whats your motivation of going through this program. My objective it to learn more about the different problems that need to solved when designing and engineer a system like self driving car. I am not necessarily looking to get a job in that space.
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dhruvp
Hi all,

My name is Dhruv (dhruv@udacity.com) and I lead the Self-Driving Car
Nanodegree program here at Udacity. I'm happy to answer questions directly on
this note (email me!). I think this program will be very different from our
existing Nanodegrees as we have real industry partners who are extremely
invested in making sure the program is high quality from the get go. This is
because they want to be able to increase their hiring pipelines as soon as
possible. We've been determining what projects/content to create by asking our
hiring partners (and Sebastian Thrun) what they would want to see in a
portfolio of someone they hire. We then work back from there and iterate to
create the content. So far, folks at Mercedes-Benz, Otto, NVIDIA, and a few
other auto companies have gone over our syllabus, given us feedback, and
helped us iterate. I'm trying my hardest to make this program something I
would myself take to get into the field or learn more about it(I'm an Engineer
by trade who moved into this role!).

~~~
seanxh
Hi Dhruv, I got an email said the course start at the end of Nov, but when
register I remember the post said it start around Oct, can you please clarify
that? Thanks

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rerock
For mine, it says December 12.. I guess they have different terms? Dhruv,
could you confirm?

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jklein11
I recieved an email as well, however mine says January of 2017. I haven't seen
anything about registering either.

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zump
Can anyone who works for a top SDC company (comma.ai, Zoox, Cruise, Uber/Otto,
Tesla) comment whether they would consider an application from someone with a
technical qualification plus this "nanodegree"? Throwaways acceptable, looking
for a pragmatic insight from an industry insider.

There is a lot of PR speak clouding my judgement.

~~~
dhruvp
Hey,

Again this is a totally valid question. I can confirm that Otto will indeed
consider someone from this program as we are working with their VP of
Engineering, Drew Gray, to actually create this program.

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vonmoltke
What is a "self driving car engineer"? Reading the publicly-available material
for this nanodegree it sounds like it is just a systems engineering
certificate program focusing on autonomous vehicle systems.

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m_leclerc
I think the SDCND is a great opportunity to get hands on experience with
cutting edge technologies. You will be evaluated and receive personalized
feedback on about 15 practical assignments covering these topics:

Computer vision (Detect lane lines in a variety of conditions, including
changing road surfaces, curved roads, and variable lighting), Neural networks
(classify traffic signs, drive a car in a simulator), Track vehicles in camera
images using image classifiers such as SVMs, decision trees, HOG, and DNNs.

More projects will cover these topics: Sensor Fusion, Localization, Control,
Path Planning, Systems and an Elective.

If you know of comparable ressource to gain experience with all this material
please share, I'm not aware of any.

Official source: [http://medium.com/self-driving-cars/term-1-in-depth-on-
udaci...](http://medium.com/self-driving-cars/term-1-in-depth-on-udacitys-
self-driving-car-curriculum-ffcf46af0c08)

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ingenieroariel
I got into the program too, read the curriculum and saw some of the material
that will be shared. I went ahead and reserved my seat.

The part that I like the most is the parallel effort to build an open source
self driving car. My motivation is to build one in my small town in Colombia -
with donkeys sharing the road it's going to be very interesting.

~~~
wburgo9
Where did you find the curriculum? I got in too, but can't find a released
curriculum anywhere.

~~~
denkasyanov
You can find info about first term here: [https://medium.com/self-driving-
cars/term-1-in-depth-on-udac...](https://medium.com/self-driving-
cars/term-1-in-depth-on-udacitys-self-driving-car-curriculum-
ffcf46af0c08#.7m5m54q4x)

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logfromblammo
By my calculations [0], one nanodegree is equivalent to approximately 0.0007
seconds of classroom instruction.

If you're going to create a self-driving car, please, please, _please_ get at
least a millidegree (~2 hours).

[0] ~120 credit-hours per B.S. degree * ~16 classroom hours per credit-hour *
360 seconds per hour * 10^-9 for nano- prefix

~~~
Namrog84
I'm assuming your being hyperbolic or sarcastic. I don't think it's intended
to mean literally a Nanos worth of a degree. More attune to just buzzword for
a certificate or completed coursework.

The word "Certificate" comes with a lot of preconceived thoughts. I think they
are trying to break away from with a new name

~~~
logfromblammo
If it is not intended to mean that, perhaps Udacity should have used elements
in their trademark that do not have such well-established definitions. Perhaps
no one realized that the inherent meaning of "nanodegree" might be derogatory
to the product?

A certificate course by any other name is still a certificate course.

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GFischer
I haven't taken it, sounds interesting.

I did read a comment from someone who took it here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12518725](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12518725)

 _They 're very light. Since they don't carry any weight you'd at least hope
to learn something. You'll get as much if not more from the free machine
learning Georgia tech course with Tom Mitchell's book than the nanodegree. As
a follow up, I took Thruns robotic driving course and it suffers from being a
purely software course. There are optional hardware projects but no imparted
hardware instruction. So I'd be especially leery of an automated driving
nanodegree degree online._

~~~
ekline
That commenter hasn't taken the Self-Driving Car Nanodegree program, October
is the 1st time this particular Nanodegree is being offered.

~~~
GFischer
Good to know. Sorry about the mistake.

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Quadropod
Seems like a good way to break into the field. I was accepted too and looked
through the released syllabus after digging around a bit -- they do a good job
integrating computer vision, sensor fusion, and path planning. They have some
cool perks like being able to run your code on a car and running driving
simulations. I don't think it will get you to a job by any means -- at most an
internship. It does seem like a good foundation to have for jumping into more
advanced topics though.

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rwamit
Hi Dhruv,

I am from India , enrolled for Nov 28 batch.if after paying this hefty amount
, if the candidate's geographical location becomes a constraint ,then what's
the use? No doubt , i will learn many things , but my ultimate goal is to land
a job in Bay Area , Germany etc.I would like that my skills and performance be
the criteria in selecting or rejecting me and not the country to which my
passport belongs to. The companies should sponsor the visa for the students
ideally if he/she is skilled enough and have proven his/her mettle in this
NanoDegree program at the end of 9 months.

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jackcosgrove
I was accepted. I am most interested in spending a long time (9 months)
learning about autonomous systems. I also like that a single autonomous
system, a self-driving car, is the focus. I think this will be more valuable
for my learning style than a more academic machine learning course which might
tackle many applications, which are probably already mature solutions. I like
that self-driving cars are a newer application and the course might actually
push the state of the art.

As a more esoteric bonus I'm evaluating this kind of learning as a potential
replacement for higher education for any children I might have, given ever-
increasing costs for brick-and-mortar universities.

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AngelicaHu
I received the email as well that I have a spot reserved for this program
starting in January 16 of 2017 (which cohort is it? The first one or not? ).
Were you accepted directly? I was told that I need to complete an assessment
to secure my spot. $2,400USD is a lot of money for an undergraduate student
like me I am afraid, but I did not notice that I could apply for a scholarship
at the very beginning. Not really sure about whether I join this cohort or I
should apply again now with a scholarship application? >.< Anyone could give
me some advice?

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babo
With self driving cars you need to address very different topics to make it
happen. From the nanodegree program I'm expecting a comprehensive curriculum
which touches the required theoretical background but pragmatic. Looking
forward to start it at November.

In the long run my goal is to switch to this area, either as an employee or
building a startup.

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sumanth_reddy
I got selected to the program November 28th cohort It was mentioned in the
website, that because of the resources that you provide for this course, you
are charging $2400. Can I know what kind of resources you are talking about.

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agumonkey
Ha, it seems I mistakenly assumed there was a free version (other platform
often offer free without signed certificates so you can follow along).

Maybe nano degrees are all paying ? If so then my bad, I hope some will get my
seat (seems so).

Wish all the fun to students.

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yid
May I ask why this is a "nanodegree"? Is having this qualification likely to
improve someone's chances of getting a self-driving engineering position in
industry?

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dragonwriter
EdX Nanodegrees are linked to, and provide specified credits toward, Master's
(or maybe other, but I think usually master's) degree programs from the
institution partnering with EdX to offer the nanodegree. (It is, I think,
intended that they should generally be useful, from a career sense,
independently, but the link to a degree program is the defining
characteristic.)

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pqhwan
May be slightly off topic, but what's the time commitment like for this
program? Are people with full time jobs expected to be able to take full
benefit of it?

~~~
denkasyanov
Great question! It is designed to take about 10 hours per week so almost
anyone can do it.

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coralreef
How intense is the math required?

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phodo
I was accepted but can't find the syllabus. Anyone have a link?

~~~
denkasyanov
It's here: [https://medium.com/self-driving-cars/term-1-in-depth-on-
udac...](https://medium.com/self-driving-cars/term-1-in-depth-on-udacitys-
self-driving-car-curriculum-ffcf46af0c08#.7m5m54q4x)

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lnalx
Is there free resources to learn self driving car engineering ?

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rerock
Will the online lectures have subtitles?

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rwamit
Hi

