Truth be told, I’m no stranger to Udacity. I’ve been building website’s for quite a while now, so taking online courses was kind of my thing. A year ago, I decided to become a digital marketer after being an independent Front End Web Developer for five years. I landed my first entry-level job as a media manager and started taking free digital marketing courses online.
The journey begins
I learned key skills and had a firm knowledge of how digital marketing works. But I was also overwhelmed by the number of niche’s while struggling to connect all the dots. Eventually, I started diluting sources and ending up with what I believe to be the best online sources for learning digital marketing. Here are some of them:
- Hubspot – For Inbound marketing
- Moz – SEO specific courses
- Coppyblogger – For in-depth Content marketing
- Google Digital Garage – Excellent to start with
- Lynda.com – A huge library of courses in the fields of Business, Technology and Creative Skills.
- Edx – Professional courses from the world’s best universities. You can audit any course for free!
The Evaluation
At that time, Udacity had already announced its new Digital Marketing Nanodegree program (DMND). I was curious because I’ve taken Udacity’s courses before and were really impressed by how they convey their programming learning materials in a fun and intriguing way. But as far as digital marketing goes, Udacity was not my first choice of a paid program. So I decided to lay back and wait for a few rounds of graduated to emerge and give their opinions about it on websites like Quora.
After waiting and researching, I found reviews to be very positive, and some have even pointed struggle keeping up with the program deadlines, Which convinced me that the program is challenging enough for me to get a firm foothold in three months.
Udacity Digital Marketing Nanodegree program
The decision stage
As I progressed, I began to feel more comfortable with my newly acquired knowledge. The new job did provide me with a good starting point at first. But after a while, I was eager to get some hands-on experience in digital marketing. So I can go on to my ultimate goal – becoming a freelance Digital Marketer.
The thing that made me go with this particular program was the fact they focused on preparing students to be job ready. Unlike other programs, Udacity offers hands-on experience with live projects. That, and of course the fact that the courses were developed in collaboration with leading brands in the digital landscape (Google, Facebook, Hubspot, Moz).