John: Hey, John Sonmez from simpleprogrammer.com.
I got a question here about Nanodegrees.
This is something that is a new kind of concept from Udacity is where I'm seeing these.
This kind of begs a bigger question about like the online degrees, online kind of programs
and the usefulness of them.
This question is from Paul and Paul says, “Hey, John.
Thanks again for posting all the resources and tips that really encourages me.
I wanted to get your thoughts on the Udacity Nanodegrees.
There are 3 individuals who have just finished the degree and have obtained jobs, the first
few that signed up for them all from different life circumstances.”
He links to this blogpost here that talks about internships that people are in from
these Nanodegrees.
There’s the article.
“The course that Udacity offers are free, but the project they guide you through to
get the degrees are not.
I just want to hear your thoughts or maybe a video since this could be an option for
many.
Thanks again, Paul.”
A little bit of background on what these Nanodegrees, this Udacity thing is.
Essentially, it’s like an online degree.
It’s not like as large as a 4-year degree program or anything like that, but it’s
a little bit—it’s basically a certification but maybe a little bit stronger than a certification.
Udacity allows you to take classes online in software development topics and they’re
a little bit more formalized.
They’re sort of like this mix between a hybrid or between a classroom learning in
a totally just online training type of thing.
They’re a little bit more rigid and have projects and whatnot, and it could carry a
little bit more credential.
I think they’re a good idea.
I think that the traditional education system is going to fail.
Actually, interestingly enough, someone expressed this better than I could ever express this.
I was just reading the book Antifragile.
In the book, the author, he says—someone asked him.
I think they sent an email or sent him a letter and said something about, “What do you think
about traditional education?” because he’s talking about the fragility of systems.
They wanted to know like what does he think is going to happen with traditional education.
He said, “Bullshit is fragile.”
What that means is basically that he thinks that the system will collapse because it’s
based on BS, and I totally agree.
I think all of the academic systems that we have today are complete BS, just the academic
society in general.
It’s a lot of BS.
When I see things like these online degrees where people are actually doing projects and
actually accomplishing things and they’re not being reamed for tens of thousands of
dollars, so someone with a prestigious title can tell them how to think in a very uniform
way and be a robot like everyone else, I like those things.
I can’t speak for this program myself because I haven’t gone through this program.
I don’t know what it entails.
I don’t know what degree.
I can just say, in general, online education is good because it puts more the focus on
learning things, on actual doing rather than getting just some knowledge in your head or
just making it through a thing, right?
They key thing is always going to come down to this and I'm always going to say this.
I'm always going to say this to my blog post, is that you need to actually do and learn,
right?
It doesn’t matter if you get a degree.
It doesn’t matter if you get a certification.
None of that stuff matters.
What matters is when you sit in front of a computer, if you’re trying a job as a computer
programmer, can you program?
Can you do it?
Can you think?
Specifically, I would ask, “Do you know how to teach yourself to self-educate to be
able to improve your skills on your own or do you need someone to spoon-feed you information?”
If you need someone to spoon-feed you information, you’re going to be in trouble because whatever
I spoon-feed you today is not going to be good for tomorrow, right?
You’re going to have figure out how you develop and learn your own skills.
How do you develop yourself and continuously improve yourself over time?
All that is basically to say, yes, I like this.
I don’t know about this exact degree program, but I like this idea.
I like the idea of breaking out traditional education.
I like the idea of getting rid of these longstanding kind of gatekeepers for education systems
and saying, okay, there’s a better way.
What we want to focus on is actually learning and that we don’t care about where the thing
comes from that.
Accreditation is not so important.
When it comes down to it, can someone actually do the work?
Can they actually accomplish their goals?
Can they actually achieve what needs to be done, right?
At the end of the day, business is to hire programmers not to be theoretical and to be
prestigious but to write code.
Can you write code?
Can you write good code that can be maintained?
If you can do that, if you’re doing something that’s going to teach you to be able to
do that, that’s what’s valuable.
Seek the things that are valuable and the rest will follow, because you can have credentials
and you can have all these things and that might get your foot in the door.
When you go down to an interview or even pass that, when you actually sit down at your job
and actually have to do your job, if you can’t do it, you can’t BS that.
You can’t fake that like you’ve got to actually be able to do it and that’s what’s
going to—in the long run, that’s going to be what’s important.
Focus on those things are going to be investments in the long term.
Anyway, good question.
I'm definitely curious to see where this goes with Udacity and these Nanodegrees.
I’ll be following it.
Thanks again, Paul.
If you have a question, you can always email at john@simpleprogrammer.com.
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