Udacity Students Say The Darnedest Things
Poring over students reviews is something that pretty much everybody at Udacity does every week. We consider the feedback we receive through our website to be high-priority actionable, and comments are circulated rapidly throughout the company virtually as soon as they come in.
Often, reviews point up something we need to work on. Other times, they serve as affirmations that we’re on the right track. We’d like to share a handful of comments from the past week that were particularly gratifying to receive.
One thing we really stress to our students is that while we’re here to support you every step of the way, this whole experience is really about self-empowerment — it’s about you doing what you need to do to achieve greatness in your life. So we love to see comments that indicate how the learning experience with Udacity has encouraged self-reliance, ambition, and initiative:
“Best learning experience ever. The fact that we have to do projects instead of we have to take tests is a huge improvement because it makes us search for extra knowledge.”
As an organization expressly committed to a philosophy of lifelong learning, we’re always excited and inspired by comments that indicate students are fired up and ready to continue their learning journeys:
“Great course. I feel confident and ready to move on to the next course.”
Even one step better than that are those comments that show students already starting to think about career goals as a direct response to their learning successes:
“This program taught me so much! I definitely feel that I am prepared for an entry-level Front End Engineer position!”
And even one step better than THAT are those responses that show learning experiences already paying off in real opportunities!
“Taking this course allowed me to write a winning proposal for 2017’s Google Summer of Code with CERN. I look forward to increasing my skills further by practising and exploration.”
“I feel like I got more out of these courses than many of the courses I took in university for my engineering degree. The projects are difficult, but they build up a portfolio of industry-applicable examples of your work to show to potential employers. I just finished this week, and have my first interview at a data analytics company next week!”
“I got a job, because of this course. Thank you very much! Udacity”
As far as we’re concerned, we’re some of the most fortunate people on the planet. Not only do we get to teach some of the most amazing, most transformative technologies the world has ever known, we also get to witness aspiring learners taking their very first steps towards establishing their fundamentals; those building blocks that ultimately lead to transformation and renewal at both the personal and career levels.
We get to know students at every stage of their learning journeys, from the moment they write their first lines of code, to the moment when they take their first plunge into the as-of-yet uncharted waters of technologies like artificial intelligence, deep learning, self-driving cars, and more.
Every once in awhile, a comment comes through where you can really just feel the excitement of the “new and unknown”:
“This program was like a glimpse of the future. It’s awe-inspiring to see how much deep learning can do while simultaneously being so new and unknown. I hope to use what I learned to drive the industry forward!”
We mentioned affirmation above, with regards to those reviews that really serve to let us know we’re doing something right. Sometimes we have to extrapolate from patterns that emerge over time, but in certain instances, a particular review will just really clearly and succinctly state something that makes us feel like we’re on the right track. The comment below is a perfect example of this. One of the real core tenets we embrace at Udacity is the idea of learning by doing — we feel this is an especially important value to maintain for two key reasons:
- We are an online learning provider, and as such, it’s especially important we find ways to provide hands-on learning experiences.
- Given that so many of the technologies we teach are still so new, hands-on experience and demonstrable evidence of accomplishment (in the form of completed projects) can become critical points of differentiation when graduates start pursuing jobs. We know firsthand from our hiring partners that this real-world experience is often why our alumni get hired.
So with all that said, it should be clear why we love this comment so much!
“This program has matched all my expectations and then some! The videos are short, clear and succinct, offering just the right balance of theory and practice. The content is well-curated and really covers the major components to set a really good machine-learning foundation and whets your appetite for deeper material. The reviews and feedback are comprehensive and fast. I am definitely encouraged to continue exploring this field!”
Did we mention we love custom hashtagging in student reviews? Probably not. But for the record, we love that!
“Amazing videos. Fast reviews. Best place to start. #UdacityWonMyHeart.
In summary, we’re just really, really, really grateful for the reviews we receive. Like this one:
“Yup.. it’s great :)”
~
This post was written by Christopher Watkins, Senior Writer and Chief Words Officer, Udacity
