Nanodegrees after online training are recognized by large IT companies

Online courses are becoming increasingly popular, displacing the traditional full-time education to prepare for the professions of the future. Some conservatives have said before that learning via the Internet is not as effective as personal attendance at lectures, but now they have lost this trump card as well. Recent studies show that online courses are not inferior in efficiency to traditional forms of education .

In the most advanced IT companies have long understood this - and do not pay special attention to the presence of a diploma from this university. Here they look at real knowledge, taking into account various certificates and courses that the candidate has completed.

For example, one of the sites with Udacity courses has recently started issuing nano-diplomas in the field of web development (Front-End Web Developer). Such "diplomas" can be considered an official document. At the very least, they are recognized when applying for a job at Google, AT & T, Autodesk, Cloudera, Salesforce and other large companies.
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In the future, it is planned to open educational programs in other areas: development for iOS, web backend developer and data analyst.

It should be noted that the company Udacity has recently received $ 35 million in venture financing. This is a great success for the famous entrepreneur Sebastian Thran (Sebastian Thrun), founder and CEO of Udacity.


Sebastian Tran (left) speaks with Governor Gavin Newsom at TechCrunch Disrupt

Characteristically, among investors, Udacity is not only American companies, but also firms from Brazil (Valor Capital Group), Germany (Bertelsmann) and Japan (Recruit). This means that the online learning model is considered promising in different countries of the world.

“Our education system was created at the request of the industry,” says Sebastian Tran. - They provided us with the best personnel, as well as money to create content, and they also developed the initial draft of the curriculum. For example, Google helped us create courses on Android, in accordance with how it understands the necessary conditions for Android developers. ”

The founder of Udacity explains that online learning should not compete with university education. These are vocational training courses, in which the extremely practical task is to prepare a person for work in a particular profession. In such a situation, learning becomes more focused: nothing extra is given to the person, but only the necessary knowledge, so the whole process goes faster.

Statistics show that the usual "student" Udacity is a man from 24 to 34 years old, who is employed below the possible level and would like to improve his qualifications. According to the company's founder, about 3 million people from 119 countries signed up for the training.

Getting a "nano-diploma" is designed for 6-12 months, subject to training 10 hours a week.



True, training in Udacity is not free: it will cost $ 200 per month. It is cheaper than studying at leading universities. However, on the Internet you can also find free courses with a similar curriculum.