This is the database one: http://www.db-class.org/
Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
21–30 of 59 posts
Re: Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
#22As universities offer more and more curriculum online, would you hire someone who had self taught himself through a CS degree? Or would you want to see the diploma?
I have a huge bias towards self-learning. Most people I know get a degree/diploma to get a job. The people who self-teach are doing it more because they're curious cats. I'll take the curious cat.
I'm self taught and I'm pretty terrible. The kids who went to school with me but majored in C.S. are pretty rockstar and work at Google et al.
Re: Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Am I the only one yearning for the convex optimization I & II classes to be offered in the new style?
Indeed, best courses on SEE by quite a wide margin.
I took those via HCP (which is like SEE but for 3x the usual grad student rate) and he's a great teacher. He's not one to let his smarts get in the way of teaching, which is not true of all the professors at Stanford.
Re: Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
#24All the HCI semesters I think back from 2007 have been available on itunes University forever.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcas...
Re: Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
#25Just to clarify: These aren't the same thing as the ai-class ( http://www.ai-class.com ) that has gotten all the buzz. This program has been around for a while and only(1) offers downloadable materials (videos of lectures + pdfs of assignments/handouts etc.) (1) "only" seems a terrible way of putting it. The materials/lecturers are amazing even if you never have your assignments graded.
The Machine Learning, and Databases classes are like the AI class on the new system, with quizzes and a statement from the professor about how you did at the end. At least the intro videos for the ML class stated as such and I got that impression from the database class as well.
For those interested:
Machine Learning - Professor Andrew Ng - http://www.ml-class.org
Introduction to Databases - Professor Jennifer Windom - http://www.db-class.org
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence - Professor Sebastian Thrun and Dr. Peter Norvig - http://www.ai-class.com
Re: Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
#26This is the database one: http://www.db-class.org/
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Re: Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a huge bias towards self-learning. Most people I know get a degree/diploma to get a job. The people who self-teach are doing it more because they're curious cats. I'll take the curious cat.
I'm self taught and I'm pretty terrible. The kids who went to school with me but majored in C.S. are pretty rockstar and work at Google et al.
Damn, that's a good anecdote to counter my argument. So I'm going to have to provide my own. I took electrical engineering. In third year I was doing a lab, and the guy next to me didn't know that capacitors are used in analog filters. I would have asked him how he got to 3rd year knowing so little, but I was too depressed.
Re: Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
#28As universities offer more and more curriculum online, would you hire someone who had self taught himself through a CS degree? Or would you want to see the diploma?
I have a huge bias towards self-learning. Most people I know get a degree/diploma to get a job. The people who self-teach are doing it more because they're curious cats. I'll take the curious cat.
What about people who do both at the same time? Personally I find this model to really work for me, Uni opens up my eyes to what exists out there, and I dig deep into the specifics of what piques my interest on my own time.
I find that most programmers who are only self taught are missing breadth. They're great with what they encountered and had to try, but usually suck at even knowing of the existence of what lies just beyond the edge.
Or at least the ones I've had the pleasure of talking to :)
Re: Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
#29As universities offer more and more curriculum online, would you hire someone who had self taught himself through a CS degree? Or would you want to see the diploma?
What sort of job are we talking about?
Certainly, being a self-taught programmer and self-teaching your way through a CS degree are different things. Likewise, Computer Science as an academic field and Programming as a career are different. Other responses have mixed this up... expecting someone trained as Computer Scientist and to be good at programming jobs is, I think, silly.
The CS department at my Ivy league school did not teach very much that would qualify the students (my peers) for work. In light of that, I consider myself a self-taught programmer, even though I have a diploma with a CS degree from my school.
So, I don't think that it's about having a degree or about (claiming) to be self taught. If you are applying for a programming job, it's about your programming portfolio, wherever and however it exists.
Re: Stanford Offers 13 classes, including AI, for free
#30As universities offer more and more curriculum online, would you hire someone who had self taught himself through a CS degree? Or would you want to see the diploma?
I have a huge bias towards self-learning. Most people I know get a degree/diploma to get a job. The people who self-teach are doing it more because they're curious cats. I'll take the curious cat.
It really depends on the person. Self-taught people are proven to be curious and like to learn, but you can also find people with degrees that are like that. They start with the a degree but never stop the learning process.