Why I bet for a Nanodegree in Digital Marketing with Udacity and would do it again!

Just finished your university and don’t know if you’re ready for the labor market? Don’t even know how to start after graduating? Want to make a change in your career but you don’t want to spend more years pursuing a traditional degree? … I think I’ve seen this doubts before. Yes, that was me and some of the doubts I had when I was just starting my career path. After 5 years pursuing a degree in my country and finally achieving it I realized that the challenge was just starting when I found myself with no idea of how to start and how to make sure I was taking the right decisions in my career.

Let’s face it, the traditional education system doesn’t necessarily prepare you for the labour market, and even more important, doesn’t prepare you to take the most important decisions about your career path. During the last three years I have been working in the commercial area of two organizations having the role of Account Manager. I have learned a lot, that’s true, but I have always felt that this is not my truly passion. So, during the past few months I let my curiosity led my career path and I found in Digital Marketing a challenging and exciting career adventure I would like to take.

After reading several blogs and some books about Digital Marketing I realized it was the time for me to take action towards making that shift in my job. In order to do that I needed to develop new skills and gain some practical experience in this field. At the beginning I didn’t know how to start, I didn’t wanted to enroll in those traditional post-graduate courses that universities offer. I passed through that experience one year ago when I was learning about e-commerce and what I found is that I spent more time in the public transportation going from my office to classes and back home than learning new things and interacting with people. Also, since I was always researching through internet extra material preparing for the classes I realized most of the content I’ve been taught by my university was already old and in a really fast-paced field like Digital Marketing this was going to be even worse.

During those weeks I was also learning to code through free online courses offered by Udacity and I started to check what other programs they had to offer. That’s how I found the Nanodegree Programs and I realized they were starting a new one in Digital Marketing. That was my opportunity! So I started to research and compare this Nanodegree with the traditional path of learning I was used to. What I found was amazing!

First, I compared the curriculum and I found it covered all and even more of the sub-topics I needed to study in the best traditional program I could found. After that, everything was getting even better. The courses were created and co-delivered by the industry leaders, so I had the opportunity to learn from the best tools every Digital Marketer should know and receive feedback from people that have experience in the field. Also, I was going to work in real world projects and interact with students from all around the world. Now if I had any doubt or I wanted to learn more I knew I was going to have a whole community of people that are pursuing the same goal as me.

Do you think that’s all? Well think again because the following was the main trigger to enroll in this course. The investment of the Digital Marketing Nanodegree Program was one third of what I was supposed to invest if I enrolled in the traditional program from one university in my city. And the best part, I would be able to learn anywhere at any time. No more endless hours in buses and traffic!

“Learning Anywhere at Anytime”

I have been in this program for a month already and I can tell you that I made the right decision. I have learned how to take the best out of this experience and start applying my new skills in my current job collaborating with the Digital Marketing area and being more involved in the conversations they are having. This is my story so far, I’m still learning and I have a long way to go in this career but I’m confident that at the end of the day I will grow a lot and have the right tools to keep on this track. Remember those first questions at the beginning of the story? Do you feel related to that? Let your curiosity take charge of the situation, you won’t regret, we are currently leaving in an era where we have the tools to discover and try new things. There is a always a hack to the traditional ways of how things are done and this Nanodegree has been my hack to make a change in my career.

Linkedin: @JulioValdez

#ImInDMND #LifeLongLearning

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