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

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281–290 of 320 posts

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

#281

CS50x (Introduction to Programming) [1]: Very well structured. Excellent and very Enthusiastic Teacher & staffs. It was the most fun MOOC I took Learning How to learn [2]: Life changing. I wish I did it sooner. ops-class (Operating Systems) [3]: This is by far the toughest MOOC I've taken. The Assignments are really tough. Although not impossible. Just the right amount of tough, I guess. I'm currently in the last few…

You accidentally duplicated the cs50 link. Where were you taking the operating systems class? I'm very interested :)

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

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's good about the first one?

I've also gone over those lectures a couple of times. I'm not even sure why I started watching them, since I knew absolutely nothing about linear dynamical systems before hand, but it really changed my life! It taught me techniques that I now use all the time, and I think are very neglected within my field (data analysis/forecasting). If your not familiar with it, it's an extremely versatile framework for modeling an…

Sounds really good, I'll make some time to watch it. Thanks!

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

#283
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Khan Academy filled the gaps from my inconsistent public schooling (moved a lot as a kid). Used to think I was just dumb (I might still be lol), but turns out missing some of the early math concepts is extremely destructive to later learning. Fill the gaps and everything else becomes so much easier . I hear tell Sal Khan is hiding out in the Bay Area somewhere, really wish I'd bump into him in a bar so I can grab his…

Khan Academy, Wikipedia, Archive.org. Between those three there is a lifetime of free education.

How do you use Archive.org as an educational resource?

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

#284
post #281

CS50x (Introduction to Programming) [1]: Very well structured. Excellent and very Enthusiastic Teacher & staffs. It was the most fun MOOC I took Learning How to learn [2]: Life changing. I wish I did it sooner. ops-class (Operating Systems) [3]: This is by far the toughest MOOC I've taken. The Assignments are really tough. Although not impossible. Just the right amount of tough, I guess. I'm currently in the last few…

You accidentally duplicated the cs50 link. Where were you taking the operating systems class? I'm very interested :)

Sorry. here's the link. You'd love it.

[3]: https://www.ops-class.org

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

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Khan Academy, Wikipedia, Archive.org. Between those three there is a lifetime of free education.

How do you use Archive.org as an educational resource?

For instance:

https://archive.org/details/mit_ocw

And then there is archive team with their Coursera backups as well.

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

#286

I found Udacity CS344: Intro to Parallel Programming (CUDA) a great class, not only from a practical standpoint of learning CUDA but also had some decent explanations/whiteboarding behind the algorithms

Think that was taken down for some reason. I tried watching it last month

That's unfortunate if true. I have a few unwatched videos from the course, so it still remains for me.

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

#287
Introduction to Mathematical Thinking (https://www.coursera.org/learn/mathematical-thinking). Aims to teach you what it is like to think like a mathematician. Covers the elements of topics that you probably encounter in the first semester of an undergraduate maths degree: logic, induction, proof construction, real analysis, etc.

Machine Learning (https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning). I'm still working through this course but am finding it extremely interesting. I find that having to implement things in matlab/octave gives you a deeper understanding than using a framework like tensorflow or keras.

Both of the above courses have good instructors, which I think is the main factor that makes a good mooc.

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

#288
post #74
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say this course would help learn languages? I'm currently self-studying Japanese, so adding another "class" would be difficult time-wise. But if this Coursera course would help, it might be worth the time for me. Thanks!

100%, YES. Self-taught Japanese, Chinese, etc. Course changed me. Wouldn't be a programmer without it. Sidenote, there's no PM function here, but my email's in my profile. Shoot me a note if you want any tips on Japanese etc. Got decks of anki flashcards for daaaays.

Anki is a lovely piece of FOSS, but its best to create your own deck(s). The process of making them, allows you to learn the content, and you're immediately familiar with the content as well. Pretty much like reading a book for studies the first time.

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

#289
post #30

The Hardware/Software Interface from the University of Washington (previously offered on Coursera). As a non-CS major, it gave clarity to a lot of the magic that happens when you write code. Fabulous course. https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse351/

I can confirm! Had the exact same issue and this was very helpful.

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

#290
post #98

These courses are for beginners, but I started with what I learned from a few courses in Coursera and turned it into a career as a software engineer. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learn-to-program and https://www.coursera.org/learn/program-code from Jennifer Campbell and Paul Gries from the University of Toronto laid a great foundation to build on. I think I took them the first time they offered it and I still don't…

how did you turn it into a career?
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