I have been reading through the discussion forums and the Slack channel and have pulled what I felt were some of the most useful questions and answers as well as resources which may be helpful for this program.
How does the scholarship work?
Right now, you are one of the 10,000 students selected for the first phase of a 3-month course. After this phase, Google and Udacity will select 1,000 students to earn a full nanodegree Mobile Web Specialist, this nanodegree has a duration of 6-months.
Find more details about this program at: https://www.udacity.com/course/mobile-web-specialist-nanodegree--nd024
On what basis are the top 1,000 students decided in the intermediate track?
When phase one ends on April 10, Udacity and Google will review your work and progress from this initial part of the scholarship program. In general, we will allocate the follow-up scholarships to high performing students based on this criteria:
- Successful completion of course material and quizzes. To be clear, there is no reward for finishing first or early. We will evaluate everyone's progress after the course ends in early April. This means making as much use of the forums as possible in order to iterate on your work.
- Support of fellow students and active participation in forums and on Slack. We have seen time and time again that the most successful students are those that learn in a community. We expect to see continuous engagement on Slack and the forums over the next three months.
What are the prerequisites to this course?
The prerequisites to the Mobile Web Specialist course are knowledge and experience in the following areas:
- One or more front-end frameworks (Angular, Backbone, Ember, or more).
- Web forms
- Git
- Unix/Linux Command Line Basics
Here are some courses on Udacity to cover each prerequisite:
- Front End Frameworks
https://www.udacity.com/course/front-end-frameworks--ud894 - Building High Conversion Web Forms
https://www.udacity.com/course/building-high-conversion-web-forms--ud890 - Github & Collaboration
https://www.udacity.com/course/github-collaboration--ud456 - Linux Command Line Basics
https://www.udacity.com/course/linux-command-line-basics--ud595 - Shell Workshop
https://www.udacity.com/course/shell-workshop--ud206
Between Slack and Forums, which one would be given more weight?
Both are important and quite distinct interactions, but in the end forum is more relevant because:
- Here is the place to submit your projects for mentor feedback: https://discussions.udacity.com/t/project-feedback-from-mentors/511883
- Your activities on the forum are measurable by badges: https://discussions.udacity.com/badges
- Forum mentors are responsible for weekly recommended best student interactions.
Are there any JavaScript refresher courses/resources you can recommend?
- Introduction to JavaScript
https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-javascript--ud803 - Introduction to jQuery
https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-jquery--ud245 - Object-Oriented JavaScript
https://www.udacity.com/course/object-oriented-javascript--ud015 - JavaScript Design Patterns
https://www.udacity.com/course/javascript-design-patterns--ud989 - JavaScript Testing
https://www.udacity.com/course/javascript-testing--ud549 - Practical JavaScript
https://watchandcode.com/p/practical-javascript - Progressive Web Apps (PWA) - The Complete Guide
https://www.udemy.com/progressive-web-app-pwa-the-complete-guide/learn/v4/overview - JavaScript: Understanding the Weird Parts
https://www.udemy.com/understand-javascript/learn/v4/overview - You Don't Know JS
https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS - The Modern JavaScript Tutorial
https://javascript.info/ - JavaScript Promises: an Introduction
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/primers/promises
What are some good resources on Service Workers?
- The Offline Cookbook
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/instant-and-offline/offline-cookbook/ - Service Worker Resources
https://jakearchibald.github.io/isserviceworkerready/resources.html - MDN Service Worker API
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Service_Worker_API - Service Worker Primer
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/primers/service-workers/ - Service Worker W3C Spec:
https://w3c.github.io/ServiceWorker/
What are some good resources on IndexedDB?
- IndexedDB Promised Library
https://github.com/jakearchibald/idb - IndexedDB API (MDN)
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/IndexedDB_API
In addition to these notes and resources I have put together, there are other student and/or former student contributions which may be useful to you:
-
Course Errata
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ToPUQgJO3VNqgE6SBfDMPtnkfsLoU5XOzc_qL4381Fg/edit?usp=sharing (contributed by Daniel) -
Article: 5 things you should do to get selected for the 2nd phase of your Google-Udacity Scholarship
https://medium.com/udacity/the-5-things-you-need-to-do-to-get-selected-for-the-2nd-phase-of-your-google-udacity-scholarship-649f22376030 (contributed by George Szabo)