Pros & Cons
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- Focused on specific job skill development, especially in computer science
- Nanodegrees produce relevant work samples
- Self-service cancellation, data download, and account deletion
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- Difficult to measure the value for job seekers
- Pricey with confusing payment options
- Courses lack passion and inspiration
Udacity provides online learning courses in the form of boot camps that focus on highly specialized job skills, primarily in technology. If you're in the market for a skill to advance your career or gain experience for a new career, Udacity certainly delivers. Its prices are high, but you end up with work samples to use in future job applications, which may have their own value. Many courses are developed in collaboration with industry partners, suggesting that you will learn skills they want; however, the payoff isn't guaranteed. If you're looking for more traditional online learning, we recommend Editors' Choice winners Khan Academy for academic subjects and MasterClass for compelling and inspiring lessons you won't find anywhere else.
What Does Udacity Offer?
At the heart of Udacity are Nanodegrees. They're courses designed to provide practical, real-world knowledge and experience to people seeking to advance their careers or launch a new one. These courses generally fall under the umbrella of computer science, but some are in marketing, business, and a few other categories. Nanodegree courses often include professional services, such as a review of your GitHub or LinkedIn pages.
(Credit: Udacity/PCMag)Udacity is not an accredited institution, so Nanodegrees do not have the same weight as a matriculated degree from an accredited university or college. That said, Udacity hosts one accredited program, a master's of science in artificial intelligence, in partnership with Woolf University (which is accredited). You can complete it for under $5,000, and the accreditation is recognized in more than 60 countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, and dozens of European nations. More on Udacity's pricing in a bit.
If you're looking for other online degree programs, however, Coursera hosts many more. As mentioned, some of Udacity's Nanodegrees are developed in collaboration with industry partners, including AT&T, Google, Intel, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, and Tableau.
PCMag cannot attest to the success rate of people who complete a Nanodegree and subsequently receive a job offer or promotion. To write this review, I audited one Nanodegree course to gauge its thoroughness, in addition to examining some other courses. More on those experiences later.
As of this writing, Udacity provides more than 150 courses. The courses are grouped into the following schools:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Autonomous Systems
- Business
- Cloud Computing
- Cybersecurity
- Data Science
- Executive Leadership
- Product Management
- Programming and Development
- Career Resources
The odd category out is Career Resources. It contains interview prep courses, but the classes are very job-specific, such as Full-Stack Interview Preparation. You'll also find a few more general short courses, such as one that teaches how to write a compelling cover letter.
The other outlier appears to be Business, until you delve into the catalog and discover additional computer science-adjacent classes, including Business Analytics with Tableau, AI-Powered Productivity with Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Data Visualization in Power BI.
Previously, Udacity offered some free courses, allowing you to dip your toe in and get a sense of the programs, but that's no longer the case. A free seven-day trial is currently available to residents of Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. This is not particularly helpful to our US readers. I tested the service from a country not on the list, and still saw "Try Risk-Free for 7 Days. Cancel Anytime" before checkout.
How Much Does Udacity Cost?
Udacity costs $249 per month. Most Nanodegree programs take three to four months to complete, so you can expect to pay between $747 and $996 per course.
Discounts and a "bundle" promotion bring the price down, but the rates are unclear. For example, the bundle's fine print says you pay $423 for a four-month commitment—not a terrible price. If you forget to cancel after four months, however, your next charge is $124.50 for one month, not $996 for four months or the marked-down price of $846 displayed at the top of the discount ad. It's confusing.
(Credit: Udacity/PCMag)Previously, the Nanodegree programs cost on average between $1,017 and $1,356, so the prices are now lower than before. But they're still high considering you aren't working toward a degree. If you want to learn about an academic topic, the free Khan Academy is the way to go for top-tier instruction.
You don't need to prove you have any special background or prior experience to enroll in any Udacity course; however, each course has its own list of prerequisites. Only a few require no previous knowledge. Before you enroll, Udacity tells you whether the course is beginner, intermediate, or advanced; how long it takes to complete; what skills you'll learn; and any prerequisites. For example, Intro to Self-Driving Cars is an intermediate-level course that takes about four months. It covers computer vision, machine learning, vehicle motion, and control. Participants are required to have prior knowledge of programming and mathematics.
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If the prerequisites ever sound too vague, you can always dive into a more detailed description. Similarly, you can get more details about the estimated time to complete the course by looking at the class's details, which will say something like, "4 months at 5-10 hours per week."
Although you can work through the class material at your own pace and complete assignments asynchronously, most classes have deadlines. For example, there's usually a deadline to enroll (though it's unclear how strict it is or whether it's a ploy to get you to "sign up now before it's too late!"). Assignments also typically have deadlines, which vary by course.
What Is Udacity Like?
Before I delve into the content of any Udacity course, let's consider a few aspects common to all of them. To begin, the classes incorporate a substantial number of video-based lessons. In addition, you get downloadable materials and interactive quizzes. The video player has closed captioning, as well as subtitles in at least one other language, in my experience. Speed controls let you slow down or speed up the video.
(Credit: Udacity/PCMag)Nanodegree courses prepare you for success by providing a clear syllabus, asking you to define your learning goals, and helping you plan how and when to complete the program. The site prompts you to create a study plan by committing to working through X hours of material on days of the week that you select.
Udacity helps you fill out the study planner based on when you want to complete the course. For example, if you need to complete 10 hours of work per week to stay on track and tell Udacity you only want to study twice a week, the site suggests dedicating five hours of study to each of those days. The recommended number of hours changes dynamically based on your input.
If you want them, Udacity also sends you email reminders to log in and make progress on days when you've committed to it. This study planner is quite helpful for figuring out what you must do to stay on course. However, it's based on the estimated time you must put in rather than on course markers, such as completing Lesson 1, Lesson 2, and so forth. Your actual pace may vary considerably from Udacity's expectations.
Downloadable materials typically show up as needed, except for the syllabus. So rather than downloading all the course materials at the start, you receive them one at a time when they're relevant.
(Credit: Udacity/PCMag)Learners in the Nanodegree programs have access to mentors who provide guidance, answer questions, and assist them in completing their courses. Mentors are vetted individuals who work for Udacity in some capacity. However, anyone can apply to become a mentor. Mentors must demonstrate proficiency in the relevant field and then commit to answering questions and providing guidance to learners.
Inside a Udacity Nanodegree Course
To test the service, Udacity provided us with access to its Digital Marketing course, one of the few courses that is neither highly technical nor overly rigorous. It's taught primarily through video lectures, which are interspersed with written content containing links to other additional resources.
Several instructors teach this course. You learn a little about their background, and then they delve into a specific aspect of marketing.
All the videos have a high production quality, and part of that is because they're clearly staged, rehearsed, and scripted. You don't get off-the-cuff remarks, much less deep or emotionally resonating thoughts. There's not a lot of passion or inspiration. If you're looking for that, go to MasterClass instead. Udacity sticks to skills and skills-based knowledge.
(Credit: Udacity/PCMag)The first several videos in the Digital Marketing course were highly corporate, reiterating the value of a career in marketing and what marketing entails. They improved once they shifted to discussing skills. Here, the content is relevant, specific, and applicable. You learn different ways to look at the value of a customer, and roughly how to calculate how much money a campaign should spend per customer. A section on SEO covers off-site SEO link building. It's the kind of education many people expect to get on the job, but sometimes never do.
In auditing this class, I did not participate in submitting assignments, although they're an extremely valuable part of the learning process and what you physically get out of a course. For example, job candidates who are expected to write code in their roles must demonstrate code samples, which may be an assignment from a relevant Nanodegree course.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Udacity)
Udacity
Udacity teaches highly specific, job-focused skills and provides opportunities to create work samples that prove it, but the video content is somewhat dry.