September
September
Happy Friday everyone! Week #3 is in the bag- congratulations on all you’ve accomplished over the past couple weeks! I know it’s a busy time for lots of folks, so I highly recommend creating a study plan to help you stay on track. With 1-2 deadlines already behind us and another deadline coming up in fewer than 2 weeks, it’s not too early to fall behind, and it can be tough to catch up once you miss a deadline or two! Don’t let it happen to you!
On to some updates and announcements to wrap up your weeks…
Kathleen Offline Oct 1 - Oct 3
I will be offline next Monday through Wednesday to attend the annual CMX summit. I will be slow to respond to any DMs or other messages. Thanks for your patience!
REMINDER: Apply to be a Student Leader!
The deadline to apply to be a Phase 2 Student Leader is this Sunday, September 30, at 11:59pm UTC! Please be sure you apply before then if you’re interested! We still could use another couple people in #band_live_help and #dand_live_help (hint hint)
Attention Bertelsmann Employees
Bertelsmann is interested in hearing from students who work for them or one of their subsidiaries! They want to talk to students in all three tracks to learn more about your experience in the scholarship so far. More details to come on how and when these conversations will happen, but if you’re interested, please fill out this brief form and either Dan or I will follow up in the near future with more information.
REMINDER: Study Jam on October 6!
Are you on track to meet the next deadline for your track? BAND’s next deadline is October 9, DFND is October 11, and DAND is October 12. To help you get caught up or stay on track, the first Study Jam will take place on Saturday, October 6 from 2pm-6pm UTC in your track’s #live_help channel. Mark your calendars so you don’t miss out!
Finally… Use the Calendar!
The calendars need some love!! :love-onion-head: You may notice some data/tech events have been added; I will continue adding any events that I come across, but PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN!! Do you know of talks/meetups happening locally? Conferences? Events? Help other students in your area find out about them too!
That’s it for this week, folks! I’ll be back on Monday briefly with some updates to kick off your week, have a great weekend, and, as always, happy learning!
Hi @channel, and happy Monday! For people in the Northern Hemisphere, happy fall equinox, and for people in the Southern Hemisphere, happy spring equinox! I hope you all had a great weekend, and would love to hear your highlights. Please share them in the #random channel!
Read on to find updates and announcements to kick off your weeks:
NEW CHANNELS
The votes are in, and this week the new channels, back by popular demand, are: #study_buddies, #fast-stream, #dach, and #music! Head over to those channels for some tunes to help you concentrate, a buddy to keep you on track, and more!
Don’t see the channel you wanted? No problem! If your channel didn’t make it this week, it will stay in the pool for future weeks. If you have a new channel idea, please fill out this form with your channel and reason you’re requesting it.
ROLLING OUT… STUDENT LEADERS AND STUDY JAMS!
Student Leaders
Remember Student Leaders from Phase 1? We’re excited to bring them back in Phase 2, with a slightly different focus on projects, since these are required to graduate and earn your Nanodegree certificate. As always, our goal is for everyone to learn as much about data science as possible and graduate with a Nanodegree, and we are calling on Student Leaders to help everyone get there!
Study Jams
For those of you in other scholarships, you may be familiar with Study Jams, which are designated days dedicated to studying and working on your projects. I’m excited to roll these out in the Bertelsmann scholarship, too!
CAREER MONTH - WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK!
Four weeks ago you made a commitment to make progress towards the job you want. During Career Month, you joined thousands of fellow Udacity students from around the world and tackled the job hunt head-on. Woo! Now that Career Month is over, we would love to hear from you! How you are feeling about the job hunt? Do you feel more prepared? Inspired to take action?
Please take a few quick minutes and share your feedback with us!
That’s it for today, but I do need to shout out whoever created emojis for careers, student leaders, and study jams! Made my hunt for the right emoji way easier!
Hi everyone, and happy Saturday! Congratulations on finishing Week 2 of Phase 2!
Channel Requests
Today is the first channel request vote :parrot: over the past two weeks, you’ve all shared your suggestions for channels to make this workspace more productive and meet your needs.
Below are the channels that were requested by at least two people; if you don’t see yours on here, it probably means that you were the only one who suggested it, so if you know that others are interested, please encourage them to fill out the form too!
NOTE: you do not need to fill out the form every week for the same channel; if you already suggested something, it will be considered in the next vote.
Please vote for the channels that you want to see by using the corresponding number emoji in response to this post. The top 2-4 channels with the most votes each week will be created on Monday, so please vote over the weekend!
Resources Database
Remember the amazing Airtable database created by your peers in Phase 1? (thanks @cordiallykathy for spearheading this!) It’s still active! (thanks @Nora for managing it still!) As you work through your Phase 2 content, build your skills, and continue to seek out information to support your own and others’ learning, remember to check the database for helpful tools, and add ones that you find along the way!
That’s it to close off your week, and I’ll be back with some exciting new initiatives on Monday to keep this community engaged and going strong!
Hi everyone, and happy Monday!
I hope you all had a great weekend, and welcome to Week 2 of your Nanodegree scholarships. Please read through for some announcements and reminders to kick off your weeks:
We’re excited to see so many people off to a strong start in their scholarships! Remember: all three tracks have had one project deadline already!
Are you on track???
If so, then great! If not, then don’t panic! it’s still early, but do your best to get caught up as soon as possible!
We recommend creating a study guide to help you meet the deadlines in your classroom. Even missing one deadline can make it hard to catch up, so don’t let yourself fall behind!
Here are some ideas to help you stay on track!
Reminder that due to some late enrollments, we pushed back the final course deadlines for everybody by one week. You can find updated deadlines in the calendar and on the deadlines page of the website:
Moving forward, I will be hosting one AMA per week. This will be every Tuesday from 3pm-4pm UTC in #ama-sessions.
You can access all resources shared during Career Month on the scholarship website; these will remain active for the remainder of the scholarship, so any time you want a refresher on career resources, please come here!
That’s it for today, folks! I’ll see you tomorrow for AMAs, and happy learning!
Hi everyone, and welcome to your weekend! It’s been a busy first week, and I have some updates about Career Month, the community, and your programs to wrap it up before we head into week 2.
You can now find all recorded sessions for career month on the scholarship website. These will stay up for the duration of the scholarship, so check them out at any time!
WEEK 4 CAREER MONTH EVENTS:
September 17th @ 8 PM UTC - Making a Career Change with Amelia Lin
Making the jump into a new career path can feel like a leap of faith. Amelia Lin, an experienced career changer several times over, shares her top strategies from experience on what works, and what doesn’t, to get your foot in the door and make a switch. Click here to attend Amelia’s event.
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September 17th @ 11 PM UTC - Professional Growth: How to Stay Relevant with James Kim
Now that you have your foot in the door, it’s important to continue to grow your network and knowledge. Our guest speaker, James Kim, will talk about how to continue learning and growing even after you’ve gotten the job. Click here to attend James’ event.
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September 21st @ 2 AM UTC - Negotiating your Offer
Money isn’t always easy to talk about - but it’s important. Once you have gotten the job of your dreams, how do you negotiate an offer you want? Our guest speaker, Denise Wood-Taylor, offers tips on how to negotiate. Click here to attend Denise’s event.
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September 21st @ 2PM UTC - Building Your Brand by Telling Your Story
Join Christopher Watkins, Senior Writer at Udacity, as he shares how writing about your interests, accomplishments, activities, and ideas is one of the best things you can do for your career! Click here to attend Christopher’s event.
Do you have something you’d like to ask Amelia, James, Denise, or Christopher? Please use this form to submit a question for any of our Week 4 “Now that You’ve Got the Job” speakers.
Reminder: track frustration
Many of you saw Dan’s post about this already, but I wanted to make sure that it was shared with the community in an announcement too. We have heard a lot of feedback from folks that DFND does not seem like the right track for them. While DFND is a great fit for a lot of students, we understand that there are exceptions where it is not right. If you were allocated DFND, please work your way through the projects and submit them for review. Projects and the individualized reviews you will receive are an important part of the Nanodegree experience. If, after completing the projects and getting feedback on them, you still feel like DFND was the wrong level and you did not learn anything, please reach out to Dan and he will be sure to address your issue.
You can add events directly to the calendar for your track now- no more messy Google forms needed! Just create an event on your own calendar, use the calendar-specific invite link to invite your track’s calendar to the event, and voila! Other students can view your event and add it to their own calendars. More information on the website.
DFND calendar invite link: knowlabs.com_ctae8t7e2rb7fbsu14tus4pm04@group.calendar.google.com
BAND calendar invite link: knowlabs.com_qur5rf0tagkvj33jjcpqmurst0@group.calendar.google.com
DAND calendar invite link: knowlabs.com_1kcc1ocfev9o5i95pdopnegpvs@group.calendar.google.com
Due to some enrollment issues, we extended the final course deadline for each track so nobody’s course progress is negatively impacted by issues on our end! You will not see any change in the deadlines in your classroom. The final deadlines are as follows:
Reminder that to request new channels, please follow this process:
The first vote will be next Friday, HOWEVER, close to half of the channel requests I’ve already gotten have been for #memes, so I’m going to skirt the process a bit for that one. Back by popular demand, #memes is live!
That’s it for now folks; enjoy your weekends and I’ll see you all back here on Monday!
Hi everyone, and happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend, and I’m happy to see so many folks logging in to their classrooms already to make progress in their Nanodegrees.
A lot has happened in the past few days, and there’s a lot to update you on here, so please read through everything closely so you have all the information you need:
Reminder! You must log in to your Nanodegree program and make at least a little bit of progress (even if it’s only 5 minutes!) by this Friday, September 14 in order to secure your spot in the Nanodegree. If we see that you have not logged into your Nanodegree by that date, we will unenroll you and offer your spot to a student on the waiting list.
If you have already messaged me that you will be unable to login due to vacation or other commitments, then no worries! I know who you are!
Missing your Nanodegree?
Do you still not have your Nanodegree in your classroom? Please ensure you’re logging in with the same email you used for the Challenge Course, and if you still don’t see it, please fill out this form so we can get you enrolled ASAP.
Getting Started in Your Nanodegree
Is this your first Nanodegree? Great! There are some differences between your Phase 1 classroom and Phase 2 classroom, so be sure to watch the orientation video, where I go over Udacity’s academic honesty policy, how to submit projects, and what you can expect over the coming months.
Also be sure to bookmark the Bertelsmann Scholarship website, where you can find information on your deadlines, announcements, and a calendar for your track where you can add meet-ups and other events for your peers!
Project Deadlines
All three tracks have their first project deadline this week! We know it’s a quick turnaround, and if you haven’t started yet, don’t panic! The first project in each track is more introductory, and is designed to help you acclimate to the project review process, so it shouldn’t take you too long.
That said, it is important that you do your best to stick to the project deadlines in your classroom!
These are here to keep you on track to graduate by the final deadline in your classroom. If you fall behind in your coursework, you may find it challenging to catch up.
Track Calendars
Since everyone has different deadlines, there are three different track calendars for phase 2. View all of them on the Calendar page of the website.
There is a link next to each calendar to add it to your personal calendar; this way, you can easily view deadlines and reminders alongside your own calendar to help you stay on track. To add events or meetups, please do the following:
Note: if you wish to share an event with students in all three tracks, you will need to send an invite to all three calendars.
New Channels
As I mentioned in the orientation video, the phase 2 workspace is going to be more streamlined than in phase 1 so everyone feels clear about where to go when they need help. Here is a breakdown for new/changes in tracks in phase 2:
Is a channel you want to see missing? Please review the new process for requesting channels:
Still have questions?
We figured you would! Join me and @Udacity-Dan for AMAs this week:
Starting September 17, AMAs will be weekly on Tuesday from 3pm-4pm UTC.
And, last, but certainly not least…
Following up from last week
I know plenty of people are still not happy with their track placement, or my response. A couple notes about this:
That’s it for today, everyone. I’m sure I’ll see plenty of folks here for the first AMA tomorrow! Please review the website, FAQs, and orientation video (all on the website) before asking questions to see if any of them were already answered there!
Hi everyone, as many (if not all) of you have seen by now, track emails went out yesterday. If you have not received an email about your track placement yet, please email scholarships-support@udacity.com and we’ll make sure you get that information ASAP!
We are working on getting everyone enrolled, and you should all have your courses in your classroom before end of day today, Pacific time (I know that’s late for some of you!)
I have gotten a lot of DMs from folks about their track, and have certainly seen the conversations happening in the public channels. I’m glad that so many people are happy or optimistic about their track placement, and I also understand that some people are disappointed. Whilst selection into the second phase was based on engagement and course completion, we used the pre-assessment tool to select your track because it is objective and unbiased. Due to the number of people in the scholarship, however, we are unable to share specific details about individual pre-assessment performance. I know this isn’t what many of you want to hear, but I kindly ask for your understanding and cooperation in this matter.
Our priority in this scholarship is to make sure that every one of you is able to successfully build your data science skills and graduate with a Nanodegree. I understand that some of you will still be disappointed after reading this, and that is ok! You’re allowed to be upset or frustrated, and to express those feelings, however we expect everyone to continue to follow the community code of conduct and treat one another one with respect, even when disagreeing.
My ask of you: You’ll have access to your Nanodegree today; take the weekend to look through the lessons. Start learning. Read the project descriptions. Talk to and engage with your fellow scholars. If you initially don’t feel sufficiently challenged, are there ways that you can build off of projects to augment your portfolio? Are there skills you could brush up on or take to the next level?
And, of course, continue to lean on each other. The community here is arguably more valuable than any technical skill or credential, and harder to gain or replicate elsewhere. Celebrate together, be upset together, cheer each other up with memes and project plans. These are your people, so keep being there for one another!
I will do my best to respond to all DMs today, and thank you in advance for your patience. I’ll also be back later today with updates on Career Month events happening next week, but I thought that warranted a separate announcement.