How you should be doing a Udacity Nanodegree: Some Tips

Photo by Mia Baker on Unsplash

This article offers my best advice on how one should approach their nanodegree so as to get maximum value for their money and time investment. Before we proceed any further, I would like to clarify that I don’t have any self-interests in this article. Yes, I am a Udacity mentor but I am writing this article from my true experiences. This has no affiliation with Udacity.

Apart from the course content which comes with every other online course, a Nanodegree comes with other advantages that are often rarely used i.e. students tend to overlook them in the heat of finishing the degree and they just don’t realize how valuable these opportunities could be. With this article, I will point onto these features one-by-one and suggest how you should be using them to your best advantage.

Project Reviews

Project Reviews are often considered to be the selling point of Udacity Nanodegrees, and why won’t they be. With Udacity, you get your projects review done by a qualified mentor. This is just not possible when you are learning on your own. You often get to learn useful tips and techniques in the process that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise. Here is some advice from my side on how you can reap the maximum benefits of projects reviews at Udacity.

Key Tips —

1. Always implement more than what the minimum requirement is. When submitting the project for review, you can ask for reviewer’s feedback on the same.
2. Give your 100% when working on a project. You should publish your project on GitHub, make a nice README, deploy it online, etc. Who knows, this project can open you to an exciting job opportunity. So it’s important to have your projects well developed.
3. Convert your project into a customized app. Give it a name, make a logo, add distinct features, publish it to a store/market, etc. Don’t name the project as “Udacity Memory Game Project”, instead call it “Match-Mania”.

Resume and LinkedIn Reviews

Resumes are still a pretty important part of getting a job. And they are here to stay. So it always helps to polish your resume. A Udacity Nanodegree always comes up with some free career services, in which we have Resume reviews and LinkedIn reviews. You can find tons of articles on the Internet on how to improve resume or LinkedIn, but you would be doing this on your own. On the other hand, having the same reviewed by another person helps a great deal. And it helps even more if that person has been doing it as a profession, as is the case with the reviewer that reviews your resume (or LinkedIn). They see tons of cases on a daily basis so they know what current trends are, what common mistakes are and how to fix them.

Key Tips —

1. Don’t miss out on this project just because it is optional. Make it a point to do it as many times as needed. Don’t be shy.
2. Update your Resume or LinkedIn before sending in for review. Try to make it as impressive as possible. It’s fine if you mess things up, the reviewer is there to point out what is right and what is wrong.

Classroom Mentor

Most of the Nanodegrees have a classroom mentor scheme where you get paired with a mentor. They are a real person who is sitting on the other side of the world ready to help you. Most students don’t utilize this feature to the full extent. You basically have someone whom you can talk to about your worries, about the course, advice for your career etc. As an important note, classroom mentors are not expected to help with anything except technical stuff but since mentors are nothing but human beings, they like helping people and will provide you with a solution for most of your queries.

Key Tips —

1. Regularly interact with your classroom mentor. Again, don’t be shy and ping them if you need help.
2. Consider them as your partner in the course. Keep them updated on your progress. This in turn also helps you to keep a check on how you are doing (since no one wants to lose face to another person).
3. Don’t lock yourself down on technical questions. Feel free to ask non-technical questions too.

Forums

A screenshot of the Udacity Forums

For me, this is note-ably the biggest advantage of doing the nanodegree. And it’s the simplest of them all. Each nanodegree comes with a forum. In a forum, you can interact with your peers and mentors who are also doing or mentoring that nanodegree. Most likely, they are interested in the same career path as yours. This is a great opportunity.You can build long-lasting networks here. You can even schedule for physical meet-ups with like-minded people. This is a boon if you are generally studying alone. With the forum, you get so many peers.

Key Tips —

1. Help others in the forum. As a student, it’s one of the greatest things to do. Plus, you also earn trust and reputation in the community. And it’s not as boring as you think, you will soon get addicted to it. 😉
2. Share projects and ideas. Till now, we had seen project reviews where you would get the review from a single person. But when you share your project on the forum, you can get feedback from tens of people.
3. Initiate and participate in healthy discussions — You can use the forum as a platform to discuss things that you always wanted to but were never able to since you lacked the needed circle. Well, now you have it.

Call to Action

Did you find this article meaningful?

Yes? Great. Now go back there and try implementing some of the points that I have mentioned in your own learning workflow. You will be surprised how much more value you can gain by doing them.

Do you have any other Nanodegree tips that you would like to share? Do let us know in the comments. Let’s build this page as an ultimate resource for getting the best out of your nanodegree.

Until next time, Happy Learning! 🎉