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CMU CS Academy: a free online computer science curriculum by Carnegie Mellon

academy.cs.cmu.edu

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Re: CMU CS Academy: a free online computer science curriculum by Carnegie Mellon

#11

Post by basch »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #9

I wonder if soon all elite universities will make all of their curriculum and lectures free online, effectively turning them into content marketing to drive their customer acquisition funnel. The actual product will be a prestigious brand name, networking opportunities, and a laundered IQ test performed by the admissions committee anointing you with the stamp of approval at the gates. In the public's mind one goes to…

Hasn’t that already been the case for a decade? How many prestigious universities have had their courses online for free?

It’s been an artificially limited social club ever since distribution of the content reached roughly infinity. It’s also a test to see if you can keep up, on time.

Re: CMU CS Academy: a free online computer science curriculum by Carnegie Mellon

#12

Post by DelightOne »

basch wrote: post #11
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #9

I wonder if soon all elite universities will make all of their curriculum and lectures free online, effectively turning them into content marketing to drive their customer acquisition funnel. The actual product will be a prestigious brand name, networking opportunities, and a laundered IQ test performed by the admissions committee anointing you with the stamp of approval at the gates. In the public's mind one goes to…

Hasn’t that already been the case for a decade? How many prestigious universities have had their courses online for free? It’s been an artificially limited social club ever since distribution of the content reached roughly infinity. It’s also a test to see if you can keep up, on time.

Universities still require students to go through their own, potentially worse, material.

Re: CMU CS Academy: a free online computer science curriculum by Carnegie Mellon

#14

Post by [deleted] »

blown_gasket wrote: post #6
lispisok wrote: post #4

How come this or things like https://teachyourselfcs.com/ dont exist for other fields like mechanical engineering?

I'd imagine the labs are a part of it. There are very few places that offer proper engineering as an online program. I've not been through mechanical engineering but for electrical engineering even the first circuits course one goes through will include using scopes, power supplies, and other testing tools. Sure you 'could' use software to emulate this, but emulations aren't real-life.

[deleted]

Re: CMU CS Academy: a free online computer science curriculum by Carnegie Mellon

#15

Post by californical »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #9

I wonder if soon all elite universities will make all of their curriculum and lectures free online, effectively turning them into content marketing to drive their customer acquisition funnel. The actual product will be a prestigious brand name, networking opportunities, and a laundered IQ test performed by the admissions committee anointing you with the stamp of approval at the gates. In the public's mind one goes to…

I partially agree, but also somewhat disagree with this. In theory it makes sense, but a lot of my education was also from the relationships with classmates where we could bounce ideas off of each other, and the help from TAs and professors when I got stuck.

If all of what I learned came from sitting in a lecture hall, then sure. And that’s how I learned the basic ideas. But a lot of how I learned to apply concepts was from making friends and studying together, or group projects, etc. Learning the different ways that other people see the concepts can help solidify them to you. Things that happen spontaneously by being in close proximity to people in your same class.

Learning together is part of the learning process that can multiply the classroom side. But it’s basically impossibly to have a casual spontaneous connection on slack or zoom.

Re: CMU CS Academy: a free online computer science curriculum by Carnegie Mellon

#16

Post by blue039 »

lispisok wrote: post #4

How come this or things like https://teachyourselfcs.com/ dont exist for other fields like mechanical engineering?

Computer Science has become a "programming" farm degree rather than what it was originally back in my day (grumble, grumble). It used to be an off-shoot of mathematics and was so strongly tied at the hip many schools had CS and math in the same department.

Cynically programmers are paid better than any other so-called "knowledge worker" field. Naturally, schools paid by large organizations have a vested interest in finding interesting ways to drive down wages. One of the easiest ways is to just pollute the waters with sub-par talent. As much as this website, Google, and many other FAANGs would like you to believe, the average person lacking a formal education in CS or a related field (math, engineering, etc) tend to make for the programming equivalent of one trick ponies. The wages have stayed high as a result.

Personally, I am growing tired of seeing all of these "learn to program" focused CS degrees. Even the one you have linked lacks the rigor of an ABET accredited program. For the last several years now every time someone tells me they like computer science what they have meant is they like learning to code. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but CS is quickly going the way of the kleenex. I am not gatekeeping to be an asshole. There is so much beauty and richness of the field. It's like the people who read one pop-sci physics book and then put "physicist" in their linkedin.

Re: CMU CS Academy: a free online computer science curriculum by Carnegie Mellon

#17

Post by rz2k »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #9

I wonder if soon all elite universities will make all of their curriculum and lectures free online, effectively turning them into content marketing to drive their customer acquisition funnel. The actual product will be a prestigious brand name, networking opportunities, and a laundered IQ test performed by the admissions committee anointing you with the stamp of approval at the gates. In the public's mind one goes to…

That seemed like the future ten years ago, but my impression is that the trend has gone the other way. There were a lot of really buzzy courses back then, but the communities don't seem motivated in the same way any more, with a large portion of the students now in pursuit of a certificate rather than intellectually curious. I also think that the reason that many of the popular early courses disappeared, wasn't just that they wee out of date, but that university administrations began to worry that they were giving too much away.

It's also possible that online learning during the pandemic has ended up making online learning in general seem unpleasant.

Re: CMU CS Academy: a free online computer science curriculum by Carnegie Mellon

#18

Post by calvinmorrison »

analog31 wrote: post #10
lispisok wrote: post #4

How come this or things like https://teachyourselfcs.com/ dont exist for other fields like mechanical engineering?

One factor may be that mechanical engineering remains dominated by expensive proprietary software, and the field is largely OK with that. Programming is unique in the sense that programmers can create their own tools, and have adopted an expectation that the most advanced tools should be free and easy to obtain. This culture could easily extend to making the training materials free too. Another factor is that "coding…

The lack of formal professional organizations is the biggest boon for computing. I'm glad we don't have an artificially low supply of programmers like we do doctors

Re: CMU CS Academy: a free online computer science curriculum by Carnegie Mellon

#19

Post by diebeforei485 »

philonoist wrote: post #13

I hope they don't take it down like how Berkeley CS videos were taken down.

Those were taken down because of some complicated lawsuit about use of public funds to make available content that wasn't accessible to people with disabilities. It was too expensive to make the recorded lectures work with tools used by people with disabilities, so the university took down the content instead instead of spending even more resources making it compatible with screen readers, adding captioning, etc.

CMU is a private university so this doesn't apply.

Re: CMU CS Academy: a free online computer science curriculum by Carnegie Mellon

#20

Post by ghoshbishakh »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #9

I wonder if soon all elite universities will make all of their curriculum and lectures free online, effectively turning them into content marketing to drive their customer acquisition funnel. The actual product will be a prestigious brand name, networking opportunities, and a laundered IQ test performed by the admissions committee anointing you with the stamp of approval at the gates. In the public's mind one goes to…

Definitely most universities are making their lectures available. For example IITs have this huge collection of all kinds of Engineering courses, https://nptel.ac.in/courses

And now they are expanding to medical sciences too! Imagine becoming a self taught doctor :/ https://dth.ac.in/medical/course.php

But yes, the value of attending a top university is not at all limited to these study materials. It is so much more.

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