This Week at Udacity, July 28 edition

Udacity
Udacity
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

Well, we might as well get right to the important stuff!

Phelps vs. Shark

Shark Week. Phelps vs. Shark. Was it amazing, or were we misled? To be honest, we saw in Phelps vs. Shark something other than a publicity stunt. We saw a restless, hungry soul that simply HAS to keep moving to be fully alive. No, not the shark. Michael Phelps. He was cast as the personification of lifelong learning, and we got our thoughts out on the matter in this post.

Discovery Week

As you know, last week we launched our first ever Udacity Discovery Week, and it officially came to a close Thursday night, July 27 at 11:59pm PT. The final results are literally staggering. Would you believe us if we told you 1000 new students enrolled in a single week? It’s actually a lot more than that. 2000? Keep counting! 4000? Keep counting! 6000? Listen, it’s even more than that. We’re excited beyond belief. So many new students entering our classrooms! So many new students who’ve made the commitment to enroll in a Nanodegree program, and set themselves on the path to a new future. Welcome new students!

A Titanic Tiff

As teachers of AI, we have both a perspective about, and a vested interest in, the future of this transformational technology. We have both monitored, and gotten involved in, many of the conversations swirling around this topic. We have noted the seemingly incessant fear-mongering that is causing so much consternation out there, and we have done our best to proffer an alternative vision. One argument we DIDN’T get in the middle of, is the one taking place between tech titans Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. You can read about that here.

To hear Sebastian Thrun and Amazon Alexa’s Ashwin Ram speak candidly about their motivations for pursuing an AI-powered future, this fireside chat is highly recommended!

Curiosity and Career Change

We’ve talked about curiosity as a foundational career skill before, as in this post, for example: The Importance of Persistence and Curiosity in a Knowledge Economy. This week, we had the great pleasure of publishing a Student Success Story that perfectly demonstrates how curiosity can power positive career change. You can read the story of how curiosity led Udacity graduate Kaisa Martiskainen towards her new dream career here.

“Udacity gave me the knowledge and the confidence to apply and successfully get hired for jobs that I thought were out of my reach.” —Kaisa Martiskainen, Udacity Graduate, User Assistance Developer at SAP Hybris

Tweet of the Week

Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the Tweet of the Week! We chose this one because not only is it a graduation celebration tweet, it’s also a great example of just how wonderful our students really are. Here we have a passionate learner who’s just achieved a significant milestone in their life, and even as they’re celebrating their accomplishment, they’s simultaneously explaining how it was a sense of honor that keep them going. Just incredible. Congratulations Alexandru!

And THAT … is This Week at Udacity!

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Udacity Inc

Learning for the Jobs of Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond

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