May Updates

News from the Scholarship Program

31.05.2018 | More Saturday Study Jams coming your way!

The first edition of Saturday Study Jam we organised on May 19 was very exciting and proved to be successful. Student Leaders running livestreams and helping others on Slack did an amazing job, contributing to the overall increase in project submissions:

18% FEND attendees successfully completed P3 a week after
33% ABND attendees successfully submitted P5 a week after

And since it worked so well, and you seemed to enjoy it so much, we've decided to repeat it... this time on a regular basis! 💪

We’re excited to announce that starting on June 9th-onwards, we’ll host a bi-weekly student run Saturday Study Jam to help you learn together and conquer your projects! This time we will also cover more projects!

>>Facebook Event for Study Jam<<

When: Saturday, June 9th 11:00-15:00 CEST

Where: Meet in the designated Slack channel:

#abnd-p6-news-stage-1
#and-p4-buildit-bigger
#fend-p4-arcade-game
#fend-p5-feed-reader
#mwsnd-stage1

How: This session will be powered by Study Jam student leaders in each project specific Slack channel who will offer live help to answer your questions via Slack messaging as well as live-streaming.

Prerequisite: You need to complete all the lessons proceeding the project you will work on during the Study Jam.

29.05.2018 | A very exciting update for these of you who use Slack (we hope it's ALL of you):

We recently launched two new channels that are gaining more and more popularity, so make sure you check them out:

#turtle-squad

Missed a deadline or two? That's totally fine. We all know how it feels like, and it can happen to anyone, especially in the self-paced course. Balancing a Nanodegree and the rest of your life is no joke! But your community is here to help you make it happen! Join the #turtle-squad on Slack to meet other students who are in the similar situation. Find out about their learning and time management tricks. Our motto is "Slow is Better Than No!". 🐢🐢

#epicfail

Spent hours debugging your code only to find out it was a stupid typo? Could not sleep for days trying to find a way to make your code work to finally realise the solution was simple and obvious? Sounds familiar? Of course it does!!!! Nobody is perfect and lets embrace that! Tell others about your code fail in the brand new Slack channel. Come on in, bring a friend, and share with the others in the channel what stupid bug you spent half a day fighting with. It will be fun – we promise. 😎

28.05.2018 | Happy Monday! We have some news for you:

As you probably know we have more and more scholarships running all around the world! To make sure everyone is getting all the attention they need, we’re switching things around a bit.

Marat will shift his focus to other scholarship programmes, the Google Dev scholarship will be fully taken over by @Magda.Udacity and @Joanna.Udacity.

What does it change for you? Not much, besides the fact that now instead of only one Slack contact person, you’re getting two! 💪💪

Magda and Joanna will be here for you for any questions, suggestions, feedback, ideas, and simply for having fun!

See you on Slack! 🌸

23.05.2018 | Jose Nieto did recently two tech webinars for Android students!

You can now find both webinars in Tech Talks section.

Jose answered many technical and project-related questions, so if you are having some difficulties with the projects you know where to look for the answers!👌

Jose also shared few tips about job search and career change – he became software developer late in his life so he knows first-hand the challenges that you face.

22.05.2018 | Join us tomorrow for a technical webinar "Getting Unstuck on FEND P3" with Mike Wales.

Webinar starts tomorrow (Wednesday, May 23rd) at 19:00, join the livestream HERE.

This webinar will feature a former Udacity Content Developer, Mike Wales, who will help you get unstuck as you navigate the infamously challenging, Project 3: Memory Game. Based on the technical questions you all submitted in advance, Mike's going to present to you (by sharing his screen) his personal tips and tricks on how to approach the project and get unstuck.

At the end, we'll reserve time to answer some live questions. So get them ready! We hope to see you there!

22.05.2018 | Udacity Scholars + Google = ❤

Since Google I/O is already over 🙌 (and now we know Gmail is going to write emails for us while Google Assistant will make phone calls for our appointments), here're two Youtube playlists we thought you might find interesting:

➡️ Playlist of Web talks from Google I/O

➡️ Playlist of Android talks from Google I/O

Four of our lucky scholars got the opportunity of a lifetime. Google flew them out to Google I/O in California as recognition for their amazing work in the Scholarship. Wanna know how it went for them?

Read the blog post: From I/O 2018 to Udacity, Grow with Google Scholars take an amazing trip! Here are also their impressions:

"The trip was fantastic. To be honest, here in humble Eastern Europe such a trip costs a fortune and it's rare that someone can afford going to the US, let alone to such a big-names convention - on my own, I would never have gotten there. With Udacity and Google I've come a long way, and I don't intend to stop. It's a whole world out there that I need to explore, learn, try fail, try again and create. The scholarship in itself was a fantastic chance and I can't express how glad I was one I found out, that I got in - but to think that was so fortunate to visit Google I/O, and be a part of the tech/developer community really is beyond words."

- Balázs Borzován, Hungary

Front-End Web Developer Nanodegree Scholar

"I strive to be a person who inspires and motivate others, and to be able to impact people's life through building cool software and applications. I am passionate about Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning and Education. I believe that this nanodegree program will bring me closer to achieving my goals."

- Aisha ElBadrawy, Egypt

Android Developer Nanodegree Scholar

“The whole Google I/O experience was exciting, fun, interesting. In just three days I learned so many new things that gave me the confidence that I can really become a full developer one day. I think one of the best part of the trip was being able to meet all the other Udacity students. Sometimes when you take online classes, it happens that you feel like you’re alone, but when you can actually meet in person it’s amazing. We talked about everything and shared so many stories, I really hope I can meet them all again!”

- Linda Alborghetti, Italy

Android Basics Nanodegree Scholar

"My life's motto is getting better every single day. Recently I learned React and I see how many possibilities it's opening up for me. I know it is just a beginning and I am looking forward to new challenges. I am so excited about having the opportunity to be at the Google I/O conference where I can meet new people with whom I can share knowledge and exchange our experiences. I am very grateful to Udacity and Google for letting me be a part of Google scholarship and making my dreams come true."

- Krzysztof Łokaj, Poland

Mobile Web Specialist Nanodegree Scholar

18.05.2018 | Saturday Study Jam: ABND P5 and FEND P3

Be like Jordan over there --> and slam, bam JAM out those tricky projects that have been holding you back: ABND P5 and FEND P3.

Details:

When: Saturday May 19th from 11:00-15:00 CEST
Where: Meet in Slack in the designated Slack channel–#abnd-p5-tour-guide or #fend-p3-memory-game
How: This session will be powered by Study Jam student leaders in each project specific Slack channel who will offer live help to answer your questions via Slack messaging as well as live-streaming.
Prerequisite: You need to complete all the lessons proceeding ABND P5 and FEND P3
Participate on Social: Share an inspirational quote answering the question "What inspires you to keep coding?" and be part of a drawing to win some sweet Udacity swag! Use #bettertogether #studyjam #googleudacityscholars

14.05.2018 | Happy Monday everyone! 🙂🙂🙂

Balancing a Nanodegree and the rest of your life is no joke! In case you got a little lonely out there conquering the course, here're few inspiring updates from your community to show you we are all in this together!

Missed a deadline or two? That's totally fine. Join the #turtle-squad on Slack to meet other students who are in the similar situation. Find out about their learning and time management tricks. Our motto is "Slow is Better Than No!"
Get to know the story of Ben from AND who, like many, found himself at a roadblock in his course progress what made him stuck for a pretty long time. He eventually managed to return and shared some tips with us:

"Even if you have absolutely no time: Spend at least 10 minutes each day on something scholarship related. This makes it more unlikely to forget things you just learned. And if you are super stressed and have really, really, really no time at all: Go to sleep 10 minutes later, maybe re-watch the last videos or read an article about the same topic. Then try to fall asleep while thinking about those last impressions."

Go to Student Stories and read the rest of his story!

Find out how Anne-Christine from ABND at age of 51 decided for a drastic career change and become a software engineer. This is the first story in our series featuring scholarship recipients with unconventional backgrounds so stay tuned!

07.05.2018 | A BIG day for MWS students 🎉✨🎈!

Yes! We did it!

The feedback collected during the Reflection Week showed that one of the things you missed about Phase 1 were the discussion Forums. Your voice was heard and guess what? We’ve opened a discussion Forum for you!

Go To Mobile Web Specialist FORUM

Go ahead and post all your project questions there too!

Two important notes:

The forum is not linked in your classroom, so please make sure you bookmark the link to make it easy to access!
This forum is accessible to Google Udacity Scholars from European edition of the scholarship program (you!), but ALSO students from US edition. What means it’s a fantastic opportunity for you to get to know other scholars from across the Ocean and share your experiences and complain on mentors' response time together! How cool is that?

A sneak peak from one of the discussions... (link here)

04.05.2018 | Everything you always wanted to know about DEBUGGING!

Yesterday we had a talk with Cameron Pittman – a course content developer and full stack engineer from Udacity. Cameron shared his tips and tricks for debugging that work with ANY type of application and project.

Watch the full talk in our brand new Tech Talks section and find out:

Why debugging is fun and why you should actually get excited whenever you get an error
Why is it important to test one change at time when you run a test
Whether you should become an expert in one framework or try to know well few of them
Whether you should develop your own style of coding or not

...and many others! This time we added timestamps in the video description so you can just jump to specific questions directly.

04.05.2018 |

For these of you who are celebrating....

03.05.2018 | May is a month of Career Webinars!

The Udacity alumni team is organising a series of careers-related webinars and events this month! Topics range from interviewing to negotiation, time management to positive thinking. Speakers come from Bertelsmann, interviewing.io and more. You can also see all events on one page HERE

Wednesday, May 2nd at 21:00 CEST, RSVP: HERE

"Acing your Interview with Positive Psychology" with VP of Talent Acquisition at Bertelsmann, Dr. Nico Rose.

Wednesday, May 9th (Multiple times), RSVP: HERE

"Ramping Up Your Productivity with Time Management" with Udacity's Head of Video Production Kim Dryden.

Wednesday, May 16th at 21:00 CEST, RSVP: HERE

"Improving Your Interviewing and Negotiation" with co-founder of interviewing.io, Aline Lerner.

Wednesday, May 23rd, 19:00 CEST, RSVP: HERE

"Negotiating Your Engineering Offer" with engineer-turned-career-coach Michelle Lai.

03.05.2018 | Wanna get a Udacity Scholar T-shirt, mug or a sticker?

The Udacity Scholarship Swag design competition is over! The final designs you voted for are now up for sale HERE!

We already sold over 100 items!!!! All profits will go to weCare Africa. Once you buy one, put it on, take a picture and send it on slack to @AbbieTurner95 (the organiser of the whole thing). We will collect them and collectively publish here on our Google Site.

Big KUDOS to @AbbieTurner95 for leading this initiative!

Don't forget to post a photo ofyourself sporting your new swag on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram #GoogleUdacityScholars

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