I'm excited to have been offered the Intro to Self-Driving Cars Nanodegree Scholarship, which is sponsored by Lyft and Udacity. I've been constantly improving my skills and expanding my knowledge of new technologies, and automation is one of the areas I enjoy learning about. Automation doesn't just make workflows more reliable, it also provides opportunities for improving human experience. This desire to find ways to improve lives drives my interest in learning about autonomous cars.

I believe that a future where self-driving cars is commonplace will only happen if people can accept it; that is if they fully trust that autonomous cars are safe and reliable. Faster adoption can be made possible by providing consumers with the relevant statistics. How will the vehicles perform in different weather conditions? different road conditions? technical failures? Obtaining this data will require tons of testing. And I feel that the autonomous vehicle industry could benefit from engineers who are both passionate about the technology and have a tester's mindset. I am hoping that this course will provide me with a better understanding of self-driving cars; that I may be able to discern how I can apply my experience in manual and automated software testing to this exciting field.