Monday, April 16, 2012

Take a Class...for free


I’ve spoken a lot on the past about ways to prepare for an interview or build up your skillset....but I’ve been following something that hopefully a lot of you have seen but I wanted to make SURE you see it because I honestly think it has a chance to change the way you think about education.

It’s called Udacity and it’s trying to dramatically alter the education system in the US.  I could go on and on about how cool this idea is...but um, you’ll get more info reading this article.  There are a lot of amazing people in the program but more importantly for those of you looking for a job or trying to break into the software industry...there are a TON of resources to get you started.

These are online, video courses taught by some of the biggest names in Computer Science.  So, if you are thinking interview prep....these are great.  I’d recommend starting with “Building a Search Engine” and “Design of Computer Programs” and assuming you have more time....digging deeper into the curriculum.

Remember, your job search and career are a journey....meaning, they never end.  Leveraging resources like Udacity, or the MIT Open Courseware help you keep building your skills and becoming a better engineer.  The better you are, the more jobs and opportunities you’ll find....or even better, will find you.

Good luck out there, let me know if you take one of these classes I’d love to hear from direct feedback on them!

2 comments:

  1. Wow, Udacity looks awesome - thanks Jeff! :)

    MIT's online courses are absolutely amazing for CS core. Stanford's Machine Learning and AI online courses and their Engineering Everywhere courses are great as well. Helped me review and learn a lot of new stuff over the past year!

    Udacity promises to be at least as awesome. I registered for "Programming Languages" and "Design of Computer Programs" courses, and will probably audit "Web Application Engineering" (particularly as they get into the content on scaling).

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  2. Awesome Artur, keep me posted I'm very curious!

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