Udacity and UC Berkeley - Current and Former Education Methods

As a former — and proud — UC Berkeley Extension graduate and current Udacity student, I decided to write this article to evaluate — through a direct analysis of my first-hand experience and the reasons behind the choices I made — current pros, cons, and new opportunities of the current education system.

1 | Road to UC Berkeley

I spent most of my last four years studying and working in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the University of California, Berkeley — top leading US public university and recent member of the 2017 ‘elite six’ — was just a few blocks away from my apartment. Consequently, over time I had the opportunity to engage with many students and attend plenty of events organized inside the campus.

UC Berkeley provides, along with respected master’s degrees and Ph.D.’s degrees — its 2-year MBA continually rank in the top 15 worldwide — professional certificates called Graduate Programs (the equivalent of a 1-year master’s degree in Europe). Students can choose a field of study and receive a specific curriculum created to start or advance their career.

After my first year spent there improving my English, the idea of studying in such a great university pushed me to spend quite a bit of time gathering as many feedbacks and suggestions as possible from former/current students, instructors, and local friends.

The more I was talking with them, the more I was convinced that a UC Berkeley Graduate Program would have boosted my skills and knowledge as well as giving me the opportunity to put into practice what learned thanks to the 1-year working VISA provided by UC Berkeley itself. I was then ready and excited to become a UC Berkeley student.

2| Problems arise

Things went great till the beginning of the fall term when I started to understand that something was not exactly right, or at least it was not as I expected to be.

The “aha moment” came when I started to leverage my network to proactively seek a job, several months before the end of the program. Without going into personal details, that’s when I realized that:

• There is a pretty significant discrepancy between the skills/knowledge students learn during the program and what companies are looking for from candidates. Courses should assure only updated and real-world related content but in reality what students get are theoretical and “old” concepts taught without a proper practical approach and mindset.

• Despite the OPT advantage (the 12-month working VISA described above) the absence of a job placement and career office within the department forces international students to struggle way more than expected to land a job.

From that point in time, I started to wonder the choice made and whether the burden of paying close to $50K (sum of tuition fee, rent, living expenses, etc.) for a 12-month commitment — where I wasn’t even allowed to work part-time — was worth it.

Luckily, I was able to overcome pretty well all the obstacles and difficulties encountered, and I spent the following year working at different companies in San Francisco. However, that bitter feeling toward my educational experience in the US pushed me to keep exploring and evaluating new learning opportunities.

3| The New/Current Method

That’s when I came across Udacity and the whole MOOC system.

I grew up with the idea that a successful student was the one with years of hard studies on his shoulders and an MBA or Ph.D. on his resume.

Translated, that means a 5-figure investment in Europe and a 6-figure one in the US.

Here instead we are talking about a fraction of the investment over a fraction of the time required for a “brick-and-mortar program.” Add the idea that partner companies — the ones that help to create the program content along with the education platform — will hire best graduate students and magic happens!

There are plenty of different online platforms out there, but as I did before with UC Berkeley, I am going to talk about Udacity.

In partnership with Google, Facebook, and other forward–thinking companies, Udacity — an online learning platform based in San Francisco — provides free online courses as well as career-centered programs called Nanodegrees.

Udacity online comments and reviews were so incredibly positive that, due to the following reasons, I decided to enroll to the Digital Marketing Nanodegree:

• Content build in collaboration with worldwide leading companies such as Facebook, Google, Hootsuite, HubSpot, MailChimp, and Moz.

• Structured career center supported by a consistent pool of hiring partners such as Capital One, Rakuten, and Zalando.

• Low tuition fee (regular price of $999).

• Short length of the program (3 months with a commitment of 10–15 hours/week).

The whole program is going extremely well, and I’m delighted with the quality of the content and the projects (there are several real-world projects to develop, launch, and test using Udacity’s official channels).

4| Final Considerations

Final results and takeaways are yet to be seen since I’ll complete the Nanodegree late August/beginning of September but I want to conclude this article analyzing UC Berkeley Extension pros and cons, and what they can learn from Udacity in order to improve their offer.

Pros:

• Tremendous reputation being under the UC Berkeley umbrella, great locations (in particular with the addition of the new San Francisco building) and vibe (studying at Berkeley is not only an excellent university choice but rather a life-changing experience).

• Graduate Programs are a great option to get a working VISA. STEM programs even allow to get a 24-month extension, and if compared to H1-Bs, they represent a great option even for companies (more about this in a future article).

Cons:

• You have to move to the US, commit a solid $50K, and study for a whole year.

• Skills learned don’t reflect what you suppose to know to perform well at work (especially if your goal is to step into a tech company or startup).

• Last, but not least, the absence of a career center and a job placement department is probably the biggest limitation. There is too much competition out there to be an acceptable deficiency.

Opportunities:

• Create Graduate Program content in partnership with top leading companies to assure only updated and relevant material.

• Develop a career center with a pool of companies willing to hire the best graduate students (leveraging the OPT advantage that MOOC platforms don’t have).

• Create two different offerings, a 12-month, full-time, and in-class program (with US-based hiring partners able to eventually use the OPT working VISA), and a cheaper and shorter online option for students unable/unwilling to move to the US (with different location-based hiring partners).

Thanks for reading. If you liked it, please hit the ❤️ below so others can find it! Feel free to get in touch with me on LinkedIn.

#ucberkeley #gobears #udacity #IminDMND