Update – Udacity Android Scholarship

I’ve been enrolled in Udacity’s  Android Associate Fast-Track scholarship for about 2 weeks now, and I’ve been quite busy with getting through the content. The programme is based on the Udacity Nanodegree offerings but is slimmed down to compact as much as possible. It’s fast-paced and it looks like it ain’t slowing down anytime soon!

What it’s like

The course is divided into 3 main sections, each with it’s own project submission at the end, which receives a personal review by the way! (I found this to be great, I was expecting basic marking but the quality of the review was fantastic) There’s no specific deadline for each section, however access to the fast-track programme ends in April, so I’m expected to complete them quite quickly.

In the first section, the basics of Android development, along with some tools in Android Studio are the subject matter. This quickly moves on to connecting to the internet, using APIs, and creating AsyncTasks for all of this networking functionality. I’ve never found networking code to be very appealing, so I always use the Volley library to handle this. Implicit/Explicit intents are covered in another sub-section, and then it’s Project Submission #1!

The task for the project was to build the start of the overall project application, Popular Movies. For part 1, the app required to display a grid of top rated/most popular movie posters, and clicking on these posters brought up a detailed view of the movie. Simple stuff, nice and easy specs with well-documented marking schemes. The submission for each project is reviewed in less than 24 hours. I received some great feedback with very useful information regarding best practices, tips and further reading on certain topics. I was honestly surprised by this level of service. As such, I’m even more grateful for getting a chance to avail of this brilliant programme for free!

I’m halfway through stage 2 at the moment, balancing work and life and learning all at once!