International Students
What the workshops actually cover
Each workshop focuses on a specific cloud platform — AWS SageMaker, Google Vertex AI, or Azure ML — and walks through real deployment scenarios. You won't be reading slides; you'll be configuring pipelines, running models, and troubleshooting errors in a live environment.
Assignments build on each other across four weeks. By the end, you'll have worked through a full model lifecycle: data prep, training, evaluation, and serving — all within a cloud provider's managed infrastructure.
4 weeks
per workshop module
3 platforms
AWS · Google · Azure
Async-first
no fixed session times required
Language and technical prerequisites
All instruction, documentation, and support are in English. A working knowledge of Python is expected before you begin — not expert-level, but enough to read and modify scripts without getting stuck on syntax.
No prior cloud experience is required. The first week of each module covers account setup, IAM basics, and cost controls, so you're not dropped into a platform you've never touched.
Equipment and access
A modern laptop with a stable internet connection is sufficient. Cloud compute costs during exercises are kept minimal through pre-configured budget limits. Students outside Canada can participate without any additional registration — there's no geographic restriction on enrollment.
Geographic distance is a solved problem here
Fresh Notebook was built from the start for participants spread across different provinces and countries. The infrastructure, the pacing, and the support model all assume that students aren't in the same room — or the same timezone.
Workshops launched in 2022 with participants from multiple regions, and the async-first format has remained the default since then. It's not an accommodation — it's the design.
01
Recorded sessions with chapter markers
02
Written feedback on every assignment
03
Community forum with instructor responses
04
Office hours across multiple timezones
05
No enrollment deadline restrictions by region
Getting started as an international participant
The steps below apply to all students outside Canada — no special intake process, same enrollment flow.
01
Choose a workshop module
Browse the learning program page and pick the cloud platform you want to focus on first. Each module is self-contained, so you don't need to complete them in a fixed order.
02
Set up your cloud account
Each module includes a setup guide for the relevant provider. Free-tier accounts work for most exercises. The guide covers how to set billing alerts so you stay within expected costs throughout the four weeks.
03
Join the participant forum
Once enrolled, you get access to the workshop forum where current participants and instructors are active. Questions posted there are typically answered within 24 hours — often sooner during weekdays.
04
Work through assignments at your pace
Assignments open weekly and stay accessible for the full module duration. There's no penalty for completing them ahead of schedule, and the recorded walkthroughs let you revisit any step you found unclear.
05
Completion and what follows
Finishing a module gives you a documented record of the work you completed — specific platforms, tasks, and tools. This is more useful in a technical context than a generic certificate, because it describes what you actually did.