A Udacity approach to learning

How is a Udacity nanodegree different from just another coding course?

Published in
7 min readNov 21, 2016

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I took a short break from my Udacity Nanodegree, and upon returning have had some time to reflect on some things. You can learn about my initial experiences and motivations in my previous post:

Lately I’ve mostly been powering through lectures, so can’t comment much on the nature of project work which I’ll get onto soon enough. But I’m not just trying to blog about my experiences of Udacity, but by the end I really want to answer the question of was it worth it? In the past few weeks, I’ve talked to people about my time with Udacity, and I often get asked if it’s an online coding course, and what’s the difference. In the past, I’ve used Codecademy to brush up on unfamiliar languages, so it only seemed logically for me to compare them both.

Let me start by saying that this entire post is about comparing apples and oranges: Codecademy and related courses have different goals than something more elaborate like Udacity. Additionally, I’m comparing my experiences of an advanced coding course to a beginner’s. I’m not saying a world where both exist is a problem. Nor am I saying there are no overlaps between them. The purpose of me writing this is to better understand the differences and help you understand why you might select one.

1. Purpose

It’s worth talking about what the real aims and goals of them both are. Udacity is really trying to deliver a higher education experience. The goals aren’t restricted to coding, and perhaps years from now we’ll see it branch out to all sorts of sectors. However, technology is a natural fit as a starting point, and that’s certainly my experience of Udacity. I’ve been going through the “Model Evaluation and Validation” section of my Machine Learning Nanodegree. Make no mistake, this is video, teaching and lecture heavy:

You’ll see on the sidepanel a number of Quizes and lectures.

The delivery isn’t flawless, but it’s clear that this is really going for a high-bar teaching experience.

Codecademy claim that they’re making an “online learning experience of the future”, but that’s a bit vague: it really focuses squarely on the coding, which is unsurprising given the name.

2. Price

So let’s talk about price. Udacity isn’t cheap — but that’s relative. Compared to insane USA college fees, it’s probably peanuts. But in relation to an online coding course like Codecademy — and indeed actual universities across Scandinavia — it’s expensive. £150 per month is a large commitment, and would demand a higher quality experience. Compare that to the generous free tier and $20/mo premium Codecademy and you’re probably thinking “why should I waste my money on Udacity?”.

And you probably have a point. Why not try Codecademy, and ‘upgrade’ if you find yourself falling in love with coding? While this is sensible approach, overall I disagree with this philosophy. Providing you can afford it, I always say go hard or go home. It’s like watching a pirated Camera release of the next Star Wars movie. Yeah, you saved money and the Engrish subtitles have their own entertainment value, but you probably lost out on the awesome lens flare experience.

Darth Vader, having graduated from Makers Academy.

So far, I remain unconvinced this can compete with a real university degree, but time will tell.

3. Prestige

In all my years as a dumb graduate I’ve realized there’s an oft neglected parameter that students forget when applying for jobs: prestige.

You could be the best 10x coder in history, or a superstar academic. But I firmly believe you need either a lot of luck, connections or prestige to grant you real success. Much to my disappointment, all the emails telling me that a prince had died and I was to inherit his savings turned out to be false — so I don’t count on luck anymore. Connections is something I’m yet to master and you can read any of the thousands of articles on Medium regarding networking.

But prestige? That’s something you can attain yourself. It could be interning at that special organisation. Or shadowing that super-CEO. Or, quite commonly, attending that prestigious institution. Udacity isn’t gonna look exactly like MIT, but I appreciate that it’s the only online course that really recognises the importance of prestige. Once again, only time will tell whether I think Udacity earns that golden badge of ‘prestige’, but it’s worth considering what makes employers hold a course in high regard:

  • Does the course itself make you look smart? Are you studying Astro-physics or Email for Beginners
  • Is there an impression of course-quality? There’s certainly a difference between “Oh Udacity? That’s a course developed by Google and Georgia Tech for the tech industry I completed” and “Oh ProgrammingForBeginners.ie? That’s an online tutorial for self-starters”. It seems to me that Bootcamps have also developed a negative perception.
  • Price? During the madness of 2011’s tuition fee rise, one of the reasons UK universities cited as justifiaction to treble fees was a concern over the fact that maintaining a low price implies low quality. Make no mistake, this is a (nano)degree, and employers will value the money and time you’ve put in.

We’re in a shallow world, and let’s be honest — I would certainly be slightly less unattractive if I picked up my date in a thirsty BMW rather than a hideous Prius (or hidi-Prius! …sorry). Prestige matters.

4. Learning methods

Columns of text.

Here’s what to expect with Codecademy: walls of text. Or maybe not walls of text. More like columns of text. Roman Columns of text. I’m not the best at reading technical stuff, and find myself skim-reading the instructions. This ends up in a situation I’m sure some of you are familiar with: pretending you’ve read the text but then getting confused after realising you’ve only absorbed 5% of the content. It’s certainly not as effective as a video delivery.

What’s more, the learning style is very mechanical. I normally always recommend practical over theoretical — but everything has it’s limits. I think the super-instruction based approach of Codeacdemy means you end up following instructions and passing exercises without actually understanding the subject matter.

And whilst the learning is very practical, it all seems a bit irrelevant at times. You might be learning how to code, but the ‘projects’ seem like odd use cases and are more about demonstrating the language than producing anything meaningful. For example, I’m not particularly convinced building a command-line to-do list application really prepares you for ‘real world development’. You’ll need to be finding your own personal projects to take your newly found coding skills anywhere in industry.

This heavily contrasts with a more elaborate lecture-focused programme such as Udacity.

Whilst sometimes lecture-heavy, there’s a good balance of priming the learner with lectures then diving into a practical aspect using typical coding libraries. This certainly is much more appealing than reading lots of text, and strikes a real balance between theoretical and practical learning. However, I would argue that for my Machine Learning nanodegree this often meant there wasn’t enough engineering. That is, we’re building and submitting interesting pieces of coursework, but there’s not much practise on how this might fit into a larger software project, or where your machine learning data might come from. There are certain advantages to the mechanical nature of Codecademy.

5. Wrapping up

So to wrap up, oranges are not the same thing as apples. I’m sorry you just wasted your time reading this.

But in all seriousness, if you’re wanting lectures, interactive learning and an experience resembling university, there’s absolutely no question that you should go for a Udacity or Corsera. If you’re looking to get a taster of what coding looks like, there’s no harm in signing up to something like Codecademy — just don’t expect it to give you the full story, and please don’t let it put you off the field.

Keep following my blog and I’ll let you know how either actually helped me get a job, or if they didn’t (in which case I may be homeless and won’t have access to the internet, so there won’t be a post).

Disclaimer: This article was written on a self-funded Codeacdemy Pro. Udacity course fees were sponsored by the Udacity UK team for the purposes of the article.

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Engineering grad and closet tech-geek who’s crawling through the adventures of life. http://lnked.in/danny