To celebrate Valentine's Day, Udacity has a one-week promotion for new subscribers with 40% of the first month's payment. This seems like a good incentive for trying it out. Here we look at four courses that you could realistically finish within 4 weeks that enable you to experience the Udacity Difference for yourself.

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As we reported in September 2023 a Udacity subscription now gives you access to any and all the content on its site, comprising 80 Nanodegree programs and over 300 courses. A subscription normally costs $249 per month (or $2,390 per year, representing a 20% discount if you prefer to pay in advance). The current promotion shaves $100 off if you pay for a single month or $956 if you pay for an entire year and seems like a tempting deal for new subscribers looking to discover "the Udacity Difference".

Udacity's approach to upskilling is claimed to:

Combine technology training for employees with industry experts, mentors, and projects, for critical thinking that pushes innovation.

In all its Nanodegrees and courses learners have to demonstrate their proficiency by completing practical projects which provide hands-on experience. Learners benefit from 

Embarking on a Nanodegree can be daunting as they range in duration from  around 2 months to 6 months depending on how much time students dedicate each week. On the other hand, most Courses  can typically be completed in a month or less. Many of these courses are also part of Nanodegree programs, and are also useful for those looking to acquire a specific skill or fill a knowledge gap. Here's a choice of four popular options for developers.

Introduction to Python is a 4-week course at Beginner level in which you learn to represent and store data using Python data types and variables, and use conditionals and loops to control the flow of programs. Learners will harness the power of complex data structures like lists, sets, dictionaries, and tuples to store collections of related data. They’ll define and document their own custom functions, write scripts, and handle errors. They will also learn to use two powerful Python libraries, NumPy, a scientific computing package, and pandas, a data manipulation package.

The hand-on project is Explore U.S. Bikeshare Data in which learners use Python to answer interesting questions about bikeshare trip data collected from three U.S. cities, writing code  to collect the data, compute descriptive statistics, and creating an interactive experience in the terminal that presents the answers to questions.

Using SQL for Data Analysis is a 3-week course at Beginner level in which you learn how to execute core SQL commands to define, select, manipulate, control access, aggregate, and join data and data tables. Learners discover when and how to use subqueries, several window functions, and partitions to complete complex tasks. Clean data, optimize SQL queries and write select advanced JOINs to enhance analysis performance. Explain which cases you would want to use particular SQL commands and apply the results from queries to address business problems.

The project in this case is Query a Digital Music Store Database in which learners use a digital music store database to help a company see how they might optimize their business practices.

Foundations of Agile and Agile Frameworks is a 4-week course at beginner level in which you learners are introduced to the Agile Mindset and how it sets the tone for "Being" Agile versus just "Doing" Agile. You will then take a deep dive into Agile Teams and Governance and apply best practices of both in order to deliver immense business value. By the end of this course, you will master characteristics of three of the more popular Agile Frameworks being utilized across all industries, which are Scrum, Kanban and XP, as well as apply The Agile Manifesto to deliver practical value in Agile teams and organizations.

In its project, WorldVisitz Mobile Application Agile Delivery Launch, learners apply the skills from this course to act as an Agile Consultant to help the WorldVisitz team launch their mobile application.

Learn Golang is a 4-week course at intermediate level for learners who already have basic computer programming skills. Having discovered what Go is, and how it can be used to build powerful applications on the cloud and web, students learn the fundamentals skills, including variables, loops, data structures, functions, interfaces, structs, and maps. Then use those skills to test and build an actual web server in the associated project.

By following any one of these courses, or dipping into any course that attracts your attention, you can discover how personalized feedback and support from Udacity's experienced mentors help students and enhances the learning experience. 

To take advantage of the 40% discount, enroll before February 16th, using the code FEB40 at the checkout.

More Information

Udacity

Introduction to Python

Using SQL for Data Analysis

Foundations of Agile and Agile Frameworks

Learn Golang

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