Ask HN: Is there a MOOC provider that deals in more advanced topics?

#1

Post by teapot01 » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 2:46 AM UTC

I enjoy learning new things and expanding my area of expertise outside of the work that I do, usually I try to do this through reading, conference talks, and online courses.

Lately though, I find that a lot of the MOOC courses from coursera, et al. tend to be written for complete beginners and provide very lightweight courses. Because of this I tend to disengage from the course and not complete it.

Are there any MOOCs that are more suited for continuing professional development?

A side question is how can these courses ever hope to replace university level training?

Re: Ask HN: Is there a MOOC provider that deals in more advanced topics?

#2

Post by pravula » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 4:19 AM UTC

A side question is how can these courses ever hope to replace university level training? - https://www.edx.org/ Some top tier univs there offering courses and degrees.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a MOOC provider that deals in more advanced topics?

#3

Post by teapot01 » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 4:31 AM UTC

pravula wrote: post #2

A side question is how can these courses ever hope to replace university level training? - https://www.edx.org/ Some top tier univs there offering courses and degrees.

I know the top tier Universities are offering degrees, but it feels like the content of those courses is not nearly as deep as the content I was taught at an admittedly lower grade university.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a MOOC provider that deals in more advanced topics?

#4

Post by csnewb » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 5:23 AM UTC

IMO once you're past the beginner stage of learning a technical topic (which is what most MOOCs provide), you have to either develop side projects or work on open source projects to learn more advanced concepts.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a MOOC provider that deals in more advanced topics?

#5

Post by orsenthil » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 5:23 AM UTC

Yeah, those are called textbooks and you start by solving the problems given in each lesson. You could start with the algorithms book written by the author named Knuth. I 've heard the problems are really challenging.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a MOOC provider that deals in more advanced topics?

#6

Post by cvguy » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:05 AM UTC

Udemy? It may not be a MOOC though but what's in a name if it serves the purpose... Also, O'Reilly Media is good. The only (major) downside is that they are not free (but largely affordable, methinks).

Re: Ask HN: Is there a MOOC provider that deals in more advanced topics?

#7

Post by hawkweed » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:25 PM UTC

In depth technical books, like for example[1], are very rare these days. Competent people are busy building systems, frameworks and making money. Some of these guys are talking on various conferences, but IMO just to present themselves to various companies. To put it simply they are mostly in a business of selling their time.

Systematic approach of learning particular topic through the books is deprecated these days. One of the ways to expand knowledge would be building stuff. If you are into distributed systems, implement something small and build upon that (i.e. implement raft[2] or build distributed rate limiter). There will be many problems and I'm sure you will learn a lot along the way.

[1] "Design of Unix Operating System by Maurice Bach" [2] https://raft.github.io/

Re: Ask HN: Is there a MOOC provider that deals in more advanced topics?

#8

Post by solomatov » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:31 PM UTC

SCPD: http://scpd.stanford.edu/home and Harvard Extension School: https://www.extension.harvard.edu/course-catalog/courses

Re: Ask HN: Is there a MOOC provider that deals in more advanced topics?

#9

Post by ejanus » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

hawkweed wrote: post #7

In depth technical books, like for example[1], are very rare these days. Competent people are busy building systems, frameworks and making money. Some of these guys are talking on various conferences, but IMO just to present themselves to various companies. To put it simply they are mostly in a business of selling their time. Systematic approach of learning particular topic through the books is deprecated these days.…

>Systematic approach of learning particular topic through the books is deprecated these days.

Are we getting smart or following trends ?

Re: Ask HN: Is there a MOOC provider that deals in more advanced topics?

#10

Post by ejanus » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

csnewb wrote: post #4

IMO once you're past the beginner stage of learning a technical topic (which is what most MOOCs provide), you have to either develop side projects or work on open source projects to learn more advanced concepts.

It is not easy to achieve that . I joined an open source project but was overwhelmed because I was not well prepped . I have to read a lot of RFCs , source codes , and countless technical papers and articles. It is indeed demanding , and crazy . Maybe I would learn something great at the end.