Amer Deep Gurung
Location: Pune, India
Age: 36
Title: Senior consultant
When your job is to recommend technology, you’d better be up on all the latest products and services. That’s what Amer Deep Gurung is tasked with doing every day at the large global consultancy where he works.
With 12 years of experience in IT, Amer is no tech newbie, but he recognizes that he needs to be adding to his skill set continuously if he wants to be a valuable asset to his clients. That can be challenging, with technology changing so rapidly in today’s digital economy. Last year’s “best solution” may not cut it this year; last month might even be too old! To find the most up-to-date information on demand, Amer turns to Udemy’s marketplace. “If I have to learn and implement anything quickly, there is no better place than Udemy. It’s kind of my knowledge genie because whatever I want to learn, it’s available on Udemy,” he says.
Clients ask for Amer’s guidance on diverse technology implementations, which requires him to be conversant on topics from mobile development to front-end development to content management systems and more. His role is to evaluate the options, understand the integration requirements, and guide clients to the right choice. While his employer offers training on mandatory subjects like compliance, he’s on his own for skills-based learning and development.
After taking courses elsewhere, Amer has made Udemy his go-to source and encourages his friends and colleagues to do the same. “I have suggested Udemy to all my near-and-dears who were struggling with their career,” he says. “Now many of them are well-settled because of Udemy courses.” One of his favorite things about Udemy is the ability to view content even when he’s offline via the Udemy mobile app. He also gives high marks to the excellent video quality of Udemy’s lectures. He appreciates being able to go through student ratings and reviews and watch preview videos before purchase so he can be sure he’s choosing the right courses.
Amer also likes that he is learning from top experts in their fields and can interact with them directly. While taking an AngularJS course with instructor Anthony Alicea, for example, Amer was stuck and got a fast response to his question. He also took advantage of lively discussions with other students. Needless to say, he can’t get this level of interactivity from books or even some other online education sites. On Udemy, he’s doing real-time backend programming as he follows along with the lectures, which helps him absorb and retain information better. And, also unlike books and other providers, Udemy courses are updated regularly by their instructors, who add lectures and tutorials when new technologies are released for all enrolled students to access.
That leads to another thing Amer values about Udemy — the lifetime access to course content once he’s purchased it. Since he’s paying for these courses out of his own pocket, it’s important Amer feels like he’s getting his money’s worth. With other online education providers he tried, he had to commit to a one-year subscription that cost hundreds of dollars — and he wouldn’t own anything at the end of that year. That, along with Udemy’s 30-day money-back guarantee, has Amer convinced that Udemy is the best way to learn anything.
“Now, I’m confident I can work on any technology because of all the available options on Udemy,” Amer says. He’s enrolled in about 10 courses so far, and his student experience has encouraged him to think about building his own course. So, we might be telling Amer’s instructor story one of these days!