Udacity

I loved the materials.  Unfortunately, much of my time during the term was disrupted by outside events, so I was unable to complete the projects.  The time estimates provided on the website for completing the various modules were too optimistic in my case -- most of them required much more time than was indicated.  Nevertheless, I found the materials rich and relevant.  I wish I had had more time to devote to the program.

UPDATE: The above paragraph was based on my experience with Udacity two years ago.  I am now back in the program for Self-Driving Car Engineering.  The material is still great and has been expanded since the first time I was in the program.  Udacity has also increased their use of mentors to help keep students from getting stuck.  My mentor has been very helpful and has provided lots of encouraging feedback and suggestions.

I have now gone through some MOOCs from different sources, payed or unpayed, and I must say, the Udacity was the most expensive one, but with the best content and best support by mentors and community.

At the moment I am doing two courses: One on deep learning with PyTorch, and the other on AI in trading. Both have exceptionally good content and breadth, and I really enjoy working through it and facing the challenge projects. I wouldn't know whether a face-to-face university program would be any better. At least I can compare it with my own academic past, and the MOOC and Udacity is better. This is the future!   

Udacity's Android nanodegree is excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Instructors and videos were very clear, and tasks (or "homework") were always relevant. The best about it was developing a project and getting feedback on it very quickly: even when submitting a project by night, I always had feedback the next morning. 

Students should be aware though, this course does demand your time. I had to work evey week and weekend during my Nanodegree, sacrificing some social events (obviously), but thankfully not so much that it took my family time. In the end it is hard work (at least for me), but it is worth it.

This said, I do think the curriculum can improve. In fairness, Udacity always seems preoccupied with updating the curriculum to keep things relevant. But I would have enjoyed this more if it was in Kotlin instead of Java (personal preference). And I would have really liked more topics like bluetooth, camera apis, and more. Overall this curriculum seems to me to be good for a Junior developer, but that depends on each company. In my experience senior developers have deep knowledge on the specifics of the app they are developing (for example, a senior of a bluetooth app would have knowledge of bluetooth apis, not necessarily any other complex api). Probably udacity needs another nanodegree in the "Advanced" section for this complex APIs.

Job assistance was superb. I was not looking for a new job but still the things I learned were useful in my current job. And from experience in job searching, I do think Udacity's help and courses on job interviews and job applications are very good.

For me, Udacity is the best online platform for learning tech stuff formally and serioulsy. My nanodegree experience proves it to me. 

I started the Business Analytics Nanodegree Program in October 2019 and I am almost done with it. I also finished the Digital Marketing Nanodegree Program like a year and a half ago.

The things I liked about the program:

-The modules are well structured in a way that is easy to follow and practice what you learn

-You don't need a previous solid knowledge in the field to start learning

-There are projects are the end of the modules to help you gauge the skills and knowledge you learnt. Reviewers will review your project and provide you with a detailed review

-You get a certificate upon completion

-You have a dedicated mentor to help you and answer your questions

-You can benefit from career coaching services

-Slack channel for students

 

What I did not like:

- The course is a bit expensive

-If you don't finish within 3 months ( in my case I chose to pay the three months upfront), you will lose access to the program unless you start paying as you go on a monthly basis again. 

BR,

Rami

I have been developing Android applications in the past as a hobby. When Google announced to partner with Udacity for this course, I got very excited and had to try this course.

It was an awesome experience.  In my opinion, the course is based on the actual career path of an android developer. Generally, an android developer starts his career with making simple basic apps, then moves to support multiple devices, fixing bugs , then the new android wear apps and material theme and then create an app of his own idea and involved in from designing UI to final development. This course does the same thing . I have learned a lot from this course. The reviewers are very good and give many suggestions to improve your coding style.

After completing this course, I feel I can develop any android application on my own. I don't need any server guy, designers, and testers. That is the real benefit of this course.

Are you interested in robotics? Do you want to learn programming applied to robotics? Are you looking to learn how ROS works? Does the cost worth the course? Well, let me give you my opinion.

I like learning from online courses like this and I've taken several in the past, all of them related to robotics and programming. And I have to say that this is a good course for beginners and for people who wants to try an online platform this will work great. So I will talk about the platform, the content, assistance, and cost.

NOTE: This is just my personal opinion. Keep in mind that we have different ways to learn in my case video lectures and hands-on exercises are the best way to learn. I will grade each content with the following metric:
 - Bad: Offers nothing
 - Regular: good enough but does not offers anything new
 - Awesome: Intuitive, clean, clear

Platform: "Awesome"
The platform is great, very intuitive and drives you easily to the content you are looking for. It also offers different free courses that you can take at the same time as you are taking the nano-degree. Every project delivery offers multiple options to upload your project.  There is a very active wiki and forum where you might find the answer to some of the questions. It even offers you an amazing online Debian platform where you can develop your projects and/or test them in some cases you do not have to worry about downloading a Virtual Machine (VM) and install your environment on it. However, If you want to learn the process of installing all the tools you need to succeed in this nano-degree I recommend you to install everything yourself. 

Content: "Regular"
The content was framed in a way that every single concept was easy to understand, the instructors are really good explaining and giving the necessary pauses for each step in the structure of algorithms and/or next steps, this includes the connection between one chapter to another. Knowing the concepts and theory is very important and Udacity really knows how to teach you that. However, if you really want to be a Robotics Software Engineer, the course should also teach you how to construct an algorithm from paper to software. 

1. Introduction to robotics:
This chapter is a brief introduction to the robotics world, giving the student a great overview of what to spect and where to focus in the future. It explains the use of the platform along with a nice welcome to the nano-degree.
2. Gazebo world:
This chapter is all about gazebo and how to create models, worlds, and plug-ins. I used gazebo a couple of times in the past and honestly, I was running away from it because I used to find it very unstable and difficult to use. Udacity took that fear away from me with this chapter, the explanations were like real-time tutorials making easy the understanding of this very powerful tool, I ran into a lot of problems trying to run the examples and the project, but hey that is the only way you can learn right, by troubleshooting your own mess. Anyway, the project was nice and useful for the rest of the chapters, this is where I go back to the chapter connection, whatever you did in your last project will be used in the next. The final project was about creating your first robot.
3. Ros Essentials:
This chapter is very straight forward. If you've never used ROS before this will give you a good explanation of the system. However, if you've used ROS before it is a waste of time you can easily jump to the project. At this point, you can find the same quality of explanation in some youtube tutorials or even reading the ROS wiki.
4. Localization, mapping and SLAM, and Path planning navigation:
In this chapter you will have a great time, you will see ROS working with a real algorithm. I enjoyed these modules a lot, it makes you troubleshoot your code and your architecture a lot of times and this is just the beginning. The only thing I really do not like is the use of pre-made packages for the projects, it would be helpful to use the packages at the beginning to teach the student how to run a more complex system on ROS and then teaching the students how to create a real localization algorithm, for example, implementing Monte Carlo localization from the paper (explained in the chapter) to code or RRT for path planning. 

Assistance: Awesome 
Assitance was great, there is a big forum full of people with great discussions, you have a private tutor to help you whenever you get stuck. Furthermore, you receive feedback every time you submit a new project. This makes the course a lot more interesting and mainly fun.

Cost: High and keep increasing => Regular

The nano-degree costs almost $900 USD. If you are new, interested in robotics and ROS and you can pay this nano degree. TAKE IT!!, it is the best option online by far. However, if you cannot pay such amount don't worry if you commit yourself to read the ROS wiki and/or practice with some video tutorials from YouTube/Coursera/EDX/Udemy they will get you up and running with all you need to start your career on ROS.
I personally enjoyed the course, however, I wasn't ready to be called a robotics engineer. It requires a lot more than any training or course. It requires commitment, hard work, practice and the most important of all HAVE FUN.  If you can take these challenges take this nano-degree.