One word: LinkedIn
OK. Two words: LinkedIn and Udacity
LinkedIn because every year they publish an
article on the top 25 or so of the most in-demand skills employers are looking
for. Recently one of the top skills has been related to cloud computing. But
about three or four years ago social media and digital marketing shot up the
list. A year or two later they said that the demand had largely been met but my
interest in the nuts and bolts of social media was stimulated by that article.
At that time however I was in a graduate program studying Speech Processing.
As part of that program, we also studied
Computational Linguistics. Many Natural Language Processing (NLP) scientists utilize
the Python programming language for their applications. My programming
background was very weak at that point so I sought a program that could help me
familiarize myself with basic programming principles and at the same use an
actual language. (Some textbooks use pseudo-code which drives me nuts.) At that
time Udacity was starting up and though some of my classmates were using
Coursera I found Udacity much more attractive for a variety of reasons.
I’m 42 years old now. I’m an American
citizen living in Korea with my Korean wife. Teaching ESL here as allowed me to
pay off my American student-loan debt and to get married but unfortunately it seems best
after two or three years of a young person teaching ESL here to move on to
greener pastures. Now if your wife happens to have an interest in English
education you might be able to open a private language school here together.
But in my case there are many obstacles to that route. So I still find myself
at this stage regretting my liberal arts education and seeking ‘hard’ technical
skills and a related career.
Which brings me to the Digital Marketing
Nanodegree Program offered by Udacity. At Coursera, it seems they just digitize
top universities programs. All types of courses in all subjects are offered.
Udacity however seems to have done a lot of research based on skills that are
actually in high demand before designing their course catalogue. Also, doing
the program online allows the busy ‘professional’ to fit the study modules more
comfortably into his or her own schedule. Plus the instructors and mentors are
always positive (the same could not be said for the professors and students at
my graduate school in Seoul).
Recently, I interviewed for a social media
manager position in a company in Seoul. The position required strong content
creation and video editing skills as well as familiarity with managing a
YouTube channel with more than 300,000 subscribers. I wasn’t successful in
getting an offer with that company but I believe that after completing one or
more of Udacity’s programs in their Business school that I will be much more
comfortable when I apply or interview for such positions in the future.
