Udacity

I loved the materials.  Unfortunately, much of my time during the term was disrupted by outside events, so I was unable to complete the projects.  The time estimates provided on the website for completing the various modules were too optimistic in my case -- most of them required much more time than was indicated.  Nevertheless, I found the materials rich and relevant.  I wish I had had more time to devote to the program.

UPDATE: The above paragraph was based on my experience with Udacity two years ago.  I am now back in the program for Self-Driving Car Engineering.  The material is still great and has been expanded since the first time I was in the program.  Udacity has also increased their use of mentors to help keep students from getting stuck.  My mentor has been very helpful and has provided lots of encouraging feedback and suggestions.

I have now gone through some MOOCs from different sources, payed or unpayed, and I must say, the Udacity was the most expensive one, but with the best content and best support by mentors and community.

At the moment I am doing two courses: One on deep learning with PyTorch, and the other on AI in trading. Both have exceptionally good content and breadth, and I really enjoy working through it and facing the challenge projects. I wouldn't know whether a face-to-face university program would be any better. At least I can compare it with my own academic past, and the MOOC and Udacity is better. This is the future!   

Udacity's Android nanodegree is excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Instructors and videos were very clear, and tasks (or "homework") were always relevant. The best about it was developing a project and getting feedback on it very quickly: even when submitting a project by night, I always had feedback the next morning. 

Students should be aware though, this course does demand your time. I had to work evey week and weekend during my Nanodegree, sacrificing some social events (obviously), but thankfully not so much that it took my family time. In the end it is hard work (at least for me), but it is worth it.

This said, I do think the curriculum can improve. In fairness, Udacity always seems preoccupied with updating the curriculum to keep things relevant. But I would have enjoyed this more if it was in Kotlin instead of Java (personal preference). And I would have really liked more topics like bluetooth, camera apis, and more. Overall this curriculum seems to me to be good for a Junior developer, but that depends on each company. In my experience senior developers have deep knowledge on the specifics of the app they are developing (for example, a senior of a bluetooth app would have knowledge of bluetooth apis, not necessarily any other complex api). Probably udacity needs another nanodegree in the "Advanced" section for this complex APIs.

Job assistance was superb. I was not looking for a new job but still the things I learned were useful in my current job. And from experience in job searching, I do think Udacity's help and courses on job interviews and job applications are very good.

For me, Udacity is the best online platform for learning tech stuff formally and serioulsy. My nanodegree experience proves it to me.