Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?

news.ycombinator.com

61–70 of 320 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?

#64
Financial markets by Robert Shiller: https://www.coursera.org/learn/financial-markets-global

I wanted to invest better so I took this course to learn the basics of financial markets (I'm a software guy and have zero training in finance). After taking it, not only do I have the basics nailed down but have gained a massive appreciation of finance as a technology that, at its best, mitigates risk and advances society.

Shiller is an authority on the topic, having won a Nobel Prize in Economics no less. His penchant for financial market history and human behavior angle on things is a massive plus for this course. I'd say the course is useful education for entrepreneurs and curious folks alike.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?

#66
I've taken "From NAND to Tetris" by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken while at high school. Very nice explanation of the whole stack.

As the name suggests, they teach the necessary to build your own computer, assembler, language and finally a simple game.

I would say it goes to an "appropriate" level of detail. You certainly won't become an electrical engineer and game developer with it, but it gives great insight on all layers and how computers actually work, and explains concepts such as pipelining.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?

#67
post #19

I took the Programming Languages course on Coursera which is so far the best course for me. It changed the way I learn any new programming language. https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-languages I see that they have split the course into 2 parts.

Actually, there are three parts. The course uses Standard ML, Racket, and Ruby as vehicles for teaching the concepts. The intent is to make you a more effective programmer in any language.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?

#69
Georgia Tech's Knowledge Based AI class (on Udacity: https://www.udacity.com/course/knowledge-based-ai-cognitive-...)

Fantastic course, more focused on theory than programming, but full of deeply fascinating commentary on what is knowledge, intelligence, learning, etc. and what does it mean for a program to demonstrate it (ie. what is AI anyway?).

My daughter was about 18 mo. old at the time I took the class, it was an outrageously awesome added bonus to watch a little human learn all the things I was trying to get a computer to learn at the same time.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken?

#70
post #26

Most fun: Pat Pattison, Songwriting, Coursera. Very good lectures, very good material, very well presented. Teaches a lot about writing song lyrics in just 6 weeks, breaks it nicely down to steps and recipes. I used to think that the best feature of MOOCs is the automatic grading and feedback from programming homework, but in this course, for the homework songwriting you gave and got feedback from 3-5 random people i…

The coursera songwriting course is really great. Also Python for Beginners, the one that uses CodeSkulptor.
Post reply on HN