AI tutor, college degrees planned for Udacity online courses: Sebastian Thrun

July 20, 2013
Sebastian Thrun

Sebastian Thrun

Udacity cofounder and CEO Sebastian Thrun says Udacity is planning to develop AI “that sits there, watches you learn, and helps you pick the right learning venue or task, so you’re more effective and have more pleasure,” he told MIT Technology Review. It should be available in at least a year, he said.

Thrun also said San Jose State University is offering core college credits/degrees for completed Udacity courses, and Georgia Tech will offer an Online Master of Science degree in computer science, to begin in January. “The most recent completion rates in pilots we’ve been running [for SJ State] have been 85 percent, as opposed to 5 percent or 4 percent, which is common in MOOC-land.”

“In five years … we’ll be just like a university, but we’ll be a university for the 21st century.”

Shelf Stacker to Software Engineer

“After taking [Udacity course] CS101, I programmed some XNA games, and bought Head First C# and Beginning ASP.NETA month ago, I got my first computer/web programming job without a bachelors degree, earning more than twice what I did at [Wal-mart]” as a shelf-stacker. [more]

2nd Annual Udacity Global Meetup Day

The Second Annual Udacity Global Meetup on July 20 is planned for Palo Alto, CA and cities around the U.S., along with large number of other countries, as well as a Hangout On Air. [More]