Would you like to accelerate your career by picking up some digital skills?
If so then Udacity is the place you want to look up to for extremely in-demand digital skills, with guaranteed workplace relevance. In fact, more than 70% of Udacity graduates get promoted or land better jobs in 12 months of course completion.
On the Udacity platform, you’ll find the best courses and nanodegrees that will teach you the skills you need to succeed in any tech field.
What’s more, their curriculum has been developed by industry experts, and includes practical, hands-on projects that ensure mastery of skills like software development, by insisting on learning by doing.
In this article, we are going to look at the best Udacity courses and nanodegrees for digital upskilling so you develop the edge you need to conquer your dreams.
With 15M+ registered users, you are for sure in great company in your pursuit of job ready digital skills.
Let’s get started.
What is the best Udacity coding course for beginners?
If you’d like to launch a career in mobile development, web development, machine learning, or even data science, you definitely will need to master the fundamentals of computing programming.
This Udacity nanodegree will take you through the first steps towards a successful career in tech by teaching you the basics of programming in Python and JavaScript, even if you are a complete beginner.
You’ll learn through practical hands-on exercises and projects that’ll help you solidify the skills you learned in the lectures.
In the process, you’ll get to build the self confidence you need as a programmer to think and solve problems.
The program starts off with the basics in HTML and some simple CSS style rules. You’ll then proceed to Python basics and intermediate features. The final project involves creating a web page that replicates a given design.
How do you become a front end web developer?
This is the best Udacity nanodegree that will teach you everything you need to know in order to build high quality websites, with amazing UIs, as well as dynamic applications that deliver stunning user experiences.
In just under 4 months of 10 hours a week study sessions, you’ll master the ins and outs of building a variety of responsive websites and applications, using technologies like CSS, Flexbox, and the CSS Grid.
Besides developing interactive apps using JavaScript and HTML, you’ll also learn how to connect your application to a back end server so you can access database storage and server processing power.
At the end of this training you’ll be able to automate development and deployment using Webpack, as well as enhance website offline performance with the help of Service Workers.
However, this course assumes previous experience with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
In order to build an application that will run efficiently on the server, while optimizing server resources, you have to master algorithms and data structures.
But before you even get a chance to put these skills to work, most technical job interviews will seek to test your algorithms and data structure skills. So this Udacity class is a great way to level up your abilities in different data structures.
Here, you’ll get hands-on experience working with more than 100 data structures and algorithms. In addition to that, you’ll also get access to technical mentor support when preparing for interviews.
Each course begins by you solving defined problems that are related to particular data structures and algorithms.
At the end of this training you’ll have the skills to effectively evaluate and assess different data structures and algorithms, and implement them in your applications. You need to have some basics in algebra for this course.
If you are a full stack developer, you’ll be able to build both the front end of your applications as well as the back end or server facing side of your applications.
This is the best Udacity program in 2022 for learning how to develop interactive web applications, websites, and systems that power startups and small businesses.
Here, you’ll pick up the skills you need to build database driven APIs and web applications that can easily scale up with the organization’s user base. You’ll also get to master how to secure and manage user authentication for your application’s backend.
Other topics that you’ll cover include deploying Python Flask applications to the cloud using containerized technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.
Before you enroll for this course, though, you need prior experience working with Python, HTML, CSS and GitHub. Having some previous experience with object oriented programming and software unit testing would also be helpful.
How do you become a business analyst today?
This business analytics nanodegree is one of the best Udacity courses for launching a successful career in business analytics.
In this course you’ll pick up the foundational data analytics skills that you can apply to any industry and project. You’ll dive into the techniques for collecting and analyzing data, modeling business scenarios, as well as communicating your findings through data visualization tools like Excel and Tableau.
Other skills you’ll pick up include how to build data models with Microsoft Excel as well as create and execute SQL database queries.
Since it is an introductory course, you don’t need any previous experience working with big data. You just need to be comfortable with computers enough to follow along as you download and install applications.
You’ll start off by brushing up your skills in probability and statistics, before diving into Excel spreadsheets, SQL databases, and data visualization.
Learning sophisticated data analysis techniques is quite fun.
However, in order to make this data useful, you should analyze it, derive useful insights, and then present your findings through charts and graphs, so that it is consumable.
Power BI is one of the most popular data visualization tools among business analysts.
In this data analysis and data visualization course on Udacity, you’ll master the Power BI skills that top companies are looking for, so that you can meet the growing demand for specialists in data analysis and visualization.
So in just under 3 months, you’ll have mastered the critical skills a data analyst must have like data processing, analysis, and visualization using tools like Power BI.
You’ll start off with a few lessons on data pre-processing so that your data can be ready for analysis tools. The next lessons involve exploring different Power BI features like report generation, then finishing it off with advanced data analysis techniques like linear regression.
Do you need to learn to code for data science?
Contrary to other professions in tech that may not demand extreme coding expertise, data scientists live and breathe code.
Python is the most popular programming language for data science, and in this programming for data science course on Udacity, you’ll learn fundamental data science tools like Python, the command line, and SQL.
These are the very skills that you need for a successful career in data science.
In fact, it is the best Udacity course for beginners in data science because no previous coding experience is required.
You’ll start off with a gentle introduction to SQL where you’ll explore query generation when extracting data. The next lessons dive deep into the Python programming language where you’ll look at data structures, loops and functions.
Finally, you’ll be able to work with Python libraries like Pandas and NumPy, while using GitHub for code storage and version control.
If you want to scale your internet based business fast, while keeping costs down, then eliciting cloud computing solutions is inevitable.
By leveraging cloud computing, you’ll get access to big data storage capabilities, while harnessing the immense processing power of the super computers that run these cloud architectures.
Becoming a Cloud DevOps engineer is one of the most popular Udacity nanodegrees for learning Agile technologies so that you can give your company a competitive edge.
In this course you’ll learn how to build and scale your cloud infrastructure so that you can deliver more efficient applications and better services, something the modern consumer keeps a keen eye on.
Other skills you’ll acquire include designing and deploying infrastructure as code, building and monitoring pipelines for different deployment strategies. You’ll also explore containerization of microservices through Kubernetes and Docker.
I’d recommend brushing up your skills on JavaScript OOP, web development, and some Linux commands before taking this course.
Computer vision is one of the most impressive applications of artificial intelligence.
It also remains one of the most in demand AI based skills today.
This is one of the top Udacity programs for mastering the very computer vision skills that power advances in the fields of robotics and industrial automation.
By taking this course, you’ll learn everything you need to know to write computer programs for analyzing images, implementing feature extractions, as well as recognizing physical objects, all with the help of deep learning models.
You’ll also learn how to build and customize your own convolutional neural networks.
Once you finish this Udacity training, you’ll be able to apply your knowledge to vision tasks like automatic image captioning and object racking. So you’ll actually end up with a strong portfolio of computer vision projects that you can use to land your first paid position in computer vision engineering.
Can computers really understand human language?
Natural language processing gives computer programs the ability to read and interpret human language, something that brings machines even closer to humans… think about voice search, or personal assistants like Siri.
If you’d like to become a natural language processing expert then this is the best Udacity class to take in 2022.
Here, you’ll pick up all the key skills you need to make computers understand human language, process and manipulate it. Through this course, you’ll learn how to build data models, while gaining practical hands-on experiences with sentiment analysis and machine translation projects.
Other topics you’ll cover include building deep learning models, such as Markov, that your computer can leverage for speech recognition, machine translation, and text analysis.
It is not a beginner friendly course, so you’ll need previous experience in Python programming, probability and statistics, as well as machine learning in order to follow along.
Self driving cars and autonomous machines are all the rage these days.
In fact, the trends in interest and investments in autonomous car production and use is only on the rise. This also means there is an accompanying demand for self driving car engineers.
This course will teach you the core building blocks of this cutting edge technology, which include robotics and machine learning.
So you’ll learn the very technical skills that engineering teams at advanced technology companies are implementing to build revolutionary self-driving cars, across the full stack of a car’s autonomous capabilities.
Other skills you’ll pick up include using deep learning with radar and lidar sensor fusion to detect and identify surroundings, in order to inform your vehicle’s navigation.
You’ll start off with basics in computer vision where you’ll master how to process raw digital images. The next lessons take you through sensor fusion so that you can track objects.
Would you like to pursue a career in robotics?
Be it in building autonomous cars or developing collaborative robots for industrial automation, robotics has quite a range of applications, including in healthcare.
In this nanodegree, you’ll find the best Udacity classes for acquiring core robotics software engineering skills like ROS, Localization, Mapping, and Path planning.
Once you acquire these foundational hands-on skills, you’ll be set to dive deeper into the world of robotics engineering, where you’ll build real robots using the ROS framework, and the C++ programming language.
You’ll also be able to apply robotics software engineering algorithms like mapping, and navigation.
This course starts with an introduction to robotics, before advancing to the Gazebo world, and finishing off with a service robot development project.
It is not a beginner friendly course, though, so you must get your skills in calculus, probability and statistics, Linux as well as C++ programming up to speed.
If you are looking for a great Udacity course for mastering how to fuse lidar point clouds, then you’ve come to the right place.
In this course you’ll learn to fuse lidar point clouds, radar signatures, and camera images using Kalman Filters. This way, you’ll be able to perceive your environment, by detecting and tracking vehicles and pedestrians over time.
By taking this nanodegree, you’ll master the concepts behind detecting obstacles in lidar point clouds by leveraging clustering and segmentation.
With these skills you’ll be able to track objects and supplement your perception by projecting camera images into three dimensions, and then fusing the resultant projections with other generated sensor data.
It is an intermediate course, which requires more than basic C++ experience, and some ninja skills in calculus and linear algebra. So I’d recommend you go through these skills separately first, before signing up for this course.
The entire course focuses around lidar, cameras, radar, and Kalman filters.
Let’s take a break from the engineering jargon and talk about digital marketing.
Social media platforms have handed traditional marketing platforms its ass, and are quickly revolutionizing how businesses identify, nurture and sell to their prospective customers.
This is the best Udacity course for learning digital marketing tools and technologies that power impactful, data driven marketing strategies. This way, you’ll acquire the skills companies are looking for in a digital marketer, so you can meet the growing demand for professionals in this field.
Some of the skills you’ll master include value proposition, key performance indicators (KPIs), and marketing objectives.
At the end of this nanodegree you’ll be able to define your target buyer persona, map out a customer journey, and come up with a content marketing strategy that will provide actual return on investment, while minimizing expenses.
There are also classes on search engine optimization, and pay per click advertising.
Most tech skills leverage some kind of database for storing and retrieving data. This is because more business processes today generate large amounts of data. This data can be stored and used for business purposes.
In this course you’ll learn relational database management. You’ll learn how to use structured query language (SQL), the programming language used by big data analysts, to derive business insights from data, to power data driven decision making.
However, you’ll not be limited to relational databases alone.
You’ll get to perform data analysis on data stored on both relational and non-relational database systems.
This means you’ll be able to create and run both SQL and NoSQL queries on large datasets with the objective of manipulating the data and using it to power strategic business decision making.
Other skills you’ll pick up include data cleaning techniques, as well as how to tune up the performance of your database for optimal resource usage.
Agile is making product development and delivery more efficient and dynamic, compared to traditional project management approaches.
Incorporating Agile technologies into your team workflows can greatly multiply productivity, while fueling innovation, something you need in order to deal your competition a blow.
This is one of the best Udacity nanodegrees for learning the best practices for implementing Agile software development methodologies into your organization. It enables you to build better, customer centered products, faster and much more efficiently, while having fun.
Along this program you’ll also pick up skills in Kanban, Scrum, and XP.
In addition to that, you’ll also explore creating a dynamic workplace environment that encourages excellent team players, while managing iterative processes using Agile techniques.
By the end you’ll know how to go about creating a workable product release schedule for a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). You’ll also be able to create trackable metrics that show project status, while fostering communication within and outside your team.
User experience design is another very important aspect of product development that cannot be ignored any longer.
Since most software products are pretty much the same these days, delivering a great user experience through exceptional UI/UX design is one of the ways modern startups are seeking to differentiate themselves.
This is the best course on Udacity for picking up some ninja skills in UX design.
Through these video classes you’ll learn how to deliver impressive user experiences through inspirational UX product design. You’ll learn by building actual projects that you can include in your portfolio, and then showcase whenever you are looking for a position in UX design.
So you’ll master the skills in taking user research and transforming it into high fidelity interactive designs.
Along the course you’ll also pick up skills in design research, design sprints, and both low-fidelity and high fidelity prototyping. Your capstone project also covers best practices for maintaining a UX portfolio.
Amazon AWS is one of the top cloud computing service providers, along Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
If you want to advance your web development career, you should consider taking the bull by the horns and learning the ins and outs of AWS cloud development.
In this becoming a cloud developer course on Udacity, you’ll learn how to conceptualize, build and deploy fully functional, production-ready web applications on the AWS ecosystem.
The course starts off by guiding you through the fundamentals of cloud development and deployment using the popular AWS platform. You’ll then proceed to get your hands dirty, building a couple of applications that leverage microservices.
Other topics you’ll cover here include containerization with Kubernetes clusters, as well as serverless application technologies.
Since it’s a course targeting intermediate developers, you should have your JavaScript, Linux and object oriented programming skills up to speed to be able to follow along with the instructors.
Cyber security is one of the most in demand skills today. You’ll not fail to find a position to fill in enterprises of all sizes, especially those that want to keep their systems safe from malicious hackers.
In this introduction to cyber security nanodegree you’ll gain the skills you need to launch a successful career as a cyber security professional.
It is one of the best Udacity nanodegrees in 2022 for learning the foundational skills in evaluating, maintaining, and monitoring the security of your organization’s computer systems, so that you can maintain optimal operating conditions.
Other skills you’ll pick up through this course include techniques and tools for assessing potential threats, and responding to cyber attack incidents.
You’ll also explore various measures to put in place to reduce your risk exposure, while also meeting data regulatory and security compliance requirements.
This is a very beginner friendly course, so you only need basic networking knowledge.
What does it take to become an ethical hacker?
The terms cyber security, network security, ethical hacking and penetration testing are often used interchangeably, even though each one slightly means a different thing. However, all fall under the cyber security umbrella.
In this Udacity course, you’ll acquire the key offensive security skills and practices that you need to become an effective ethical hacker, so you can protect your organization’s computer systems and networks.
So instead of just watching cyber attacks and data breaches in the news, you’ll actually play part by meeting the growing demand for ethical hacking professionals.
The main skills you’ll acquire revolve around finding and exploiting known and unknown vulnerabilities in computer networks, software applications, as well as weak points that can be exploited through social engineering attacks.
Basically, you’ll be designing and executing a penetration test using the best pentesting methodology, while generating reports and preparing your presentations to the management.
If you’d like to be part of the product design, development and delivery process then you should consider a career in product management.
In this Udacity program, you’ll learn what it takes to become a product manager.
You’ll pick up the key skills involved in envisioning and leading a product development team and strategy, so that you can take an idea, turn it into a product and successfully bring it to market for actual feedback.
Being the product manager, you’ll be able to directly influence the product design and development process, which also pushes the burden of the product’s success onto your shoulders.
Along this training, you’ll also explore the factors to consider when defining a product strategy, as well as when setting up your key performance indicators (KPIs). You’ll then look into pitching a product vision to stakeholders, and designing user centered prototypes.
Finally, you’ll know how to develop a product development timeline, and effectively communicate the roadmap.
In the previous course we talked about how to become a product manager.
While that applies to general product management, this particular Udacity course introduces you to the management of AI-based products.
This is one of the best Udacity courses that will teach you how to evaluate the real value of an artificial intelligence based product.
The course starts off by taking you through some fundamental AI concepts, before diving into scoping and building a dataset. Here you’ll learn how to train a model, while evaluating its actual performance and business impact.
You’ll therefore be able to ensure that product development and delivery is a success while keeping an eye on scalability, potential biases, and regulatory compliance.
What’s more, you’ll be reviewing various case studies and examples of different projects so you can sharpen your skills when it comes to defining the metrics to use when measuring the business value of a product.
Regardless of how skilled you are, there’ll always be one thing that stands between you and your dream job: the technical interview.
Like it or not, you’ll have to sell yourself here. You’ll have to do some convincing.
Let’s finish off this list of the top Udacity classes in 2022 by looking at the interview preparation courses that they have, and that you can take to increase your chances of killing the technical interview, and landing the job.
This full stack web developer interview preparation will teach you what you need to know in order to confidently take on the technical interview.
Here, you’ll go through a mock technical interview, where you’ll explore in depth the various ways to respond to full stack development questions and challenges.
In addition to that, you can also expect to address full stack web developer interview topics that include algorithms, data structures, and palindrome functions.
How can you convince a panel of interviewers that you are the best candidate to fill the machine learning engineer position?
In this machine learning interview preparation course on Udacity, you’ll explore the different kinds of questions and challenges to expect during a machine learning job interview.
You’ll begin by going through the common questions you should expect to be asked, together with the technical strategies involved in AI development.
The next couple of lessons review the most important topics that interviewers will test your knowledge on, like machine learning algorithms and some well known image processing and categorization algorithms.
Lastly, in order to prepare you to whiteboard accordingly, you’ll revise the best practices for data structure questions and the problems you’ll encounter when whiteboarding.
All of these, together with access to a pool of mock interviews on Pramp, will help you hone your interviewing skills, so you can walk right in there with your head held high.
Let’s finish off this review of the top Udacity online courses by looking at an Android developer interview preparation course that I also had a chance to brush through.
First, remember all these interview preparation courses are free and last under a week, so feel free to try them out even before you finish the actual nanodegree program that you are currently enrolled in.
This Android interview preparation is a great way to prepare yourself for the Android developer interview. Such interviews take place whenever a company is looking to fill up an Android app developer position rather quickly.
Just like the previous courses, you’ll go through a mock interview where you’ll be asked the key questions related to Android app development.
So you’ll get to cover the most common Android development topics like explicit and implicit intents, and designing a min stack. You’ll also find tips for answering behavioral questions as well as whiteboarding problems.
Conclusion
I hope this review of the top Udacity courses and certifications has opened your eyes into what is possible with Udacity when it comes to acquiring digital skills.
That being said, I’d still admit that whenever I find a platform like this, with a ton of courses to choose from, I get overwhelmed and end up procrastinating, and not taking a course… thanks to the paradox of choice.
So I’ll make it simpler:
If you’d like to launch a career in web development, take the Become a Full Stack Web Developer nanodegree. You’ll get to combine both front and back end development in one go, thereby saving time.
However, if you are a digital marketer looking for ways to optimize your marketing campaigns, the Digital Marketing Nanodegree Program provides you everything you need. You’ll get to combine both SEO and advertising classes.
Have you taken any of these courses on Udacity before?
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