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Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#61
post #55

"Awakening from the meaning Crisis" by John Vervaeke https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5e...

Some introduction for uninitiated?

We are experiencing a mental health catastrophe. Anxiety disorders, sadness, and despair are on the rise, and suicide rates are rising across North America, parts of Europe, and other parts of the world. This mental health crisis is caused and exacerbated by problems in the environment and the political system, which are in turn entwined with a deeper cultural historical catastrophe that I refer to as "The Meaning Crisis." It is becoming increasingly ubiquitous in our daily lives. And there's a feeling of drowning in this old ocean of nonsense. And we need to figure out why this is the case. And what are we going to do about it?

Mentioning a number of folks who have talked in ways that will supply us with the resources we require. We'll discuss ancient figures such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as Jesus of Nazareth, Siddhartha Gautama, and the Buddha, as well as present significant figures. We'll discuss people like Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche. We'll discuss Heidegger.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#62
Related:

1. Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34591291

2. Ask HN: Recommend me a course on Coursera - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22826722

3. Ask HN: What are the best MOOCs you've taken? -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16745042

4. Ask HN: Top Coursera Courses? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25245125

Found some mind-expanding, really edifying courses in these thread.

There's also a website dedicated to MOOCs, and some underrated gems are there: Class Central.

There was a recent list in freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/coursera-free-online-cours...

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#63

gilbert strang's linear algebra https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL49CF3715CB9EF31D . he has a few other linear algebra themed courses on there. very good because (1) he’s an incredible teacher, and (2) linear algebra is beautiful

Having taken his class in person, I would like to second this. The man is a beautiful thinker and he presents linear algebra in a way that is extremely comprehensive and approachable.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#64
MIT's 16.687 - Private pilot ground school. If you want to become a private pilot or start your career, this is the place to begin. The professors are approachable and the content is comprehensive. https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/16-687-private-pilot-ground-scho... all of the videos for the lectures are available on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63cUdAG3v31...

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#65

Intro to Database Systems by Andy Pavlo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeYBdghaIjc&list=PLSE8ODhjZX... MIT 6.824 Distributed Systems by Robert Morris - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQP8WApzIQQ&list=PLrw6a1wE39...

I can absolutely vouch for the 2nd course which is on distributed systems - it’s a gem. It also has lab exercises which are high quality stuff too.

It looks interesting and relevant!

Edit: link to course planning and labs https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/schedule.html

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#66

Intro to Database Systems by Andy Pavlo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeYBdghaIjc&list=PLSE8ODhjZX... MIT 6.824 Distributed Systems by Robert Morris - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQP8WApzIQQ&list=PLrw6a1wE39...

Syllabus and coursework for the database course: https://15445.courses.cs.cmu.edu/fall2022/schedule.html

It looks really good

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#67
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from the programming exercises being in Matlab (which nobody uses for ML nowadays), the course is still solid. The theoretical concepts and math that the course covers are still relevant and provide a good foundation for someone starting out.

Now it uses Python: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/machine-learning-in...

That's not the course OP is talking about.

The good news is that someone converted the matlab/octave exercise templates into numpy, and published them as jupyter notebooks that can work with the course's auto-grader: https://github.com/dibgerge/ml-coursera-python-assignments

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#68
post #3

I am quite fond of the three molecular biology courses from MIT on edx [1][2][3]. Not only are the lectures great, but they also have spaced repetition built in. The exercises are often great counterfactual questions that encourage deep understanding. [1] https://www.edx.org/course/molecular-biology-part-1-dna-repl... [2] https://www.edx.org/course/molecular-biology-part-2-transcri... [3] https://www.edx.org/course/m…

Thanks a lot, I was on a path to learn bio/med (there's a coursera bioinformatics minimooc too).

Anybody in computational biology btw ? slack, irc.

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#69

Big fan of steve brunton's control bootcamp series. Helped me through my control systems courses greatly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi7l8mMjYVE&list=PLMrJAkhIeN... Great for robotics, or anything where you need to control complex physical systems, from f1 cars to 3d characters in games

can second this...also recommend his books

Re: Ask HN: What are some of the best university courses available online for free?

#70

Jeremy Siskind's jazz piano courses taught out of Fullerton College. https://jeremysiskind.com/jazzclass/ This is a bit of a cheat because these courses are not free ($50USD for California residents and around $400 for non-CA residents) but they are so good that I had to mention them. I am nearing the end of the Level II course and have learned so much stuff. They force you to do so many things that you otherwise wou…

Hey, I appreciate this post and gave a re-upvote.

Is this course more about composition or performance? I realize jazz is about improv which is a skill I'd like to have.

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