We don't usually combine Java and JavaScript in a single news item. But we'll make an exception since Udacity has new intermediate level Nanodegree programs in both of them, starting on July 14th. And with financial support on offer, a discount for each month of enrollment, this seems a good time to work towards enhanced career prospects.

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As well as a common starting date, what these two nanodegree programs share is that students learn while developing hands-on real-world projects from industry expects with technical mentor support. Other benefits of the nanodegree are a personal career coach and career services and currently. for those impacted by COVID-19 Udacity of offering deeper discounts.

To encourage you to consider Intermediate JavaScript Nanodegree, Udacity discloses that 95% of the world's 1.6 billion websites use JavaScript making it a highly sought-after skill. In this new program you’ll learn the fundamentals of object-oriented programming, functional programming, and asynchronous programming in JavaScript. The goal of the nanodegree is to:

prepare students for roles in web development, server-side application development, and desktop development that require a more advanced set of JavaScript skills. This program will also prepare students with the skills required to use JavaScript frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue.  

A graduate of this program will be able to:

• Use object-oriented JavaScript to build classes to construct objects that encapsulate data and functionality
• Create private state with closures and immediately-invoked function expressions 
• Parse, organize and transform data in JavaScript using common methods for collections, arrays, and objects 
• Use the functional programming paradigm with immutable objects, pure functions, and common functional methods.
• Design functional programming pipelines using higher order wrapping functions and currying.
• Implement asynchronous programming with JavaScript including using named functions, handler functions, and JavaScript Promises.

The prerequisites of the course are to be able to:

• Explain and utilize JavaScript's primitive types
• Write conditions and loops
• Recognize object syntax and structure
• Declare functions
• Navigate and use Chrome DevTools 

If you need to prepare or brush up these skills to meet the enrollment requirements, the recommended route is the Front End Web Developer Nanodegree which we recently covered in detail, see New Udacity Web Developer Nanodegrees.

Intermediate JavaScript is a 3-month nanodegree program, with four or five lessons each month and listing the projects gives you a good idea of what to expect:

• Course 1: Object Oriented JavaScript
  Project: Create a User-generated Infographic from provided data and user input data. Students will also pull in information from a form and use it to complete an array of objects that will be appended back to the DOM.
  
  
• Course 2: Functional Programming
  Project: Create a Mars Rover Dashboard using all the ES6 syntax and functional programming concepts from the course to interact with a real NASA API and build the front end logic.
  
  
• Course 3: Asynchronous Programming in JavaScript
  Project: Build a UdaciRacer Simulation Game by combining callbacks, Promises and Async/await syntax to complete TODOs marked in the code, ranging from creating API requests to completing asynchronous logic flows. Create a theme for your race, like Nascar, horse racing, or spaceship racing and by the end, you will be able to play through a racing game of your very own creation.

The new Java Web Developer Nanodgree is an enhanced and updated version of a program that was announced last year and enthusiastically welcomed by Nikos Vaggalis in this report which makes a strong case for being interested in it.

A four-month program, with each of its four courses having between four and eight lessons, its goal is still to:

Equip students with the unique skills they need to build enterprise-scale applications with Java.

but now students are expected to have an intermediate knowledge of Java and if not are pointed in the direction of the Intro to Programming Nanodegree program.

By completing the Java Web Developer Nanodgree students will be able to:

• Understand the fundamentals of the Spring Boot framework and associated integrations and plugins.
• Describe the differences between web services, APIs, and microservices, develop REST and GraphQL APIs and learn how to secure, consume, document, and test those APIs and web services.
• Work with relational and non-relational databases, use Java to read/write and build test cases for MySQL and MongoDB, and build persistence for Java applications.
• Learn about Git, version control, and best practices for authorization and authentication. Use Jenkins to build CI/CD pipeline to deploy code to production. 

The courses and projects involved are as follows: 

• Course 1: Spring Boot Basics
  Project: Build a Web-based Personal Storage Application using Spring Boot as a base implement user-facing features like file, note, and secure credential storage with industry-standard, full-stack development tools.
  
  
• Course 2: Web Services and APIs 
  Project: Build the Backend System for a Car Website. using Java APIs and frameworks to integrate different services using different communication styles.
  
  
• Course 3: Data Stores & Persistence
  Project: Design the Data Model for a SaaS Application
  

  This enterprise project will allow users to create schedules that associate pets, owners, and employees with calendar events. Students will configure their application to connect to an external database and use both JDBC and Hibernate to persist changes to it. Basic CRUD operations will be exposed via a REST controller layer so that students can test their application using Postman.

• Course 4: Security and DevOps
  Project: Implement Authorization for an eCommerce Application using Spring Security with OAuth and username/password combinations to an eCommerce web application created in Spring Boot

This sounds like quite and undertaking over the course of just four months but I Programmer team member, Nikos Vaggalis has committed to cover this nanodegree in an "Insider's Guide" series, just as he did for the Android Developer's Nanodegree. The nanodgree starts on July 28, so act quickly if you want to join him. 

More Information

Intermediate JavaScript Nanodegree

Java Web Developer Nanodgree

Front End Web Developer Nanodegree

Related Articles

Enrollment Open for New Java Developer Nanodegree 

New Udacity Web Developer Nanodegrees  

Professional Credentials For Computer Science Careers 

C++ Nanodegree From Udacity 

Insider's Guide To Udacity Android Developer Nanodegree

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