Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A guide for people who want to self-study the basics of computer science

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 83 posts

Re: A guide for people who want to self-study the basics of computer science

#31

Post by ke88y »

hahhahanananana wrote: post #6

> High School Mathematics Whenever I try to catch up with maths (in Khan Academy and elsewhere), I always end up in an awkward state where I keep recursively researching less and less advanced subjects because of gaps of various sizes in my fundamental knowledge. It's incredibly demotivating.

Paradoxically, self-teaching is most difficult at the "101" and "pre-101" level. Once you have the basics, self-teaching becomes much easier.

Teaching yourself Calculus I and Calculus II after obtaining High School mathematical literacy is not too bad. Teaching yourself Differential Equations or even Functional Analysis after obtaining the pre-reqs is actually quite easy. But teaching yourself high school or especially middle school mathematics requires a TON of dedication.

It's not impossible, of course, but "The Basics" are where you really benefit from the help of a professional educator.

For this reason, I recommend eschewing self-directed resources and enrolling in an "Applied Math" or "College Algebra" course at your local community college. These courses are basically "high school mathematics for people who never learned or forgot high school mathematics". Depending on where you live, the "College Algebra" course at your local Community College is probably very cheap or free and available as an evening and/or online course. You usually do not need to enroll in a degree program to take the course.

Once you make it through "College Algebra" you can return to self-directed learning.

Community Colleges are a vastly under-utilized resource, particularly for these "very fundamental knowledge gaps" where self-directed learning is much more difficult.

Re: A guide for people who want to self-study the basics of computer science

#33

Post by bovem »

hahhahanananana wrote: post #6

> High School Mathematics Whenever I try to catch up with maths (in Khan Academy and elsewhere), I always end up in an awkward state where I keep recursively researching less and less advanced subjects because of gaps of various sizes in my fundamental knowledge. It's incredibly demotivating.

It might not be the same for you. But this is what I enjoy when I study anything. Filling up the gaps in my knowledge and learning about new ways to think or understand about a concept. Maybe you shouldn't dive so deep into the concepts. Just write all the topics/concepts you didn't understand while learning something and watch one video about each of them.

Re: A guide for people who want to self-study the basics of computer science

#34

Post by gareve »

yt-sdb wrote: post #22
hahhahanananana wrote: post #6

> High School Mathematics Whenever I try to catch up with maths (in Khan Academy and elsewhere), I always end up in an awkward state where I keep recursively researching less and less advanced subjects because of gaps of various sizes in my fundamental knowledge. It's incredibly demotivating.

Maybe 5 years ago, I was in a similar place. I had a particularly embarrassing moment at work when it clicked that I just... didn't know the basics. I was, to use an overused term, "mathematically immature". So I made a commitment: I decided I would work through Khan Academy math for 1-hour a day for 1 year. I started with pre-K [1] (specifically counting) and watched every video and did every single exercise in orde…

if you would have to do it again, would you change something on your methodology? I assume there were some unnecessary time sinks here & there

Re: A guide for people who want to self-study the basics of computer science

#35

Post by gareve »

totierne2 wrote: post #12

I am looking for a bottle of computer science motivation for my 16 year old. I do an hour a week coding with him. It is not enough, he does no coding in between times. There are other things he prioritises ahead of coding. (School, music, YouTube videos, and chess.)

create a music or YouTube bot together

Re: A guide for people who want to self-study the basics of computer science

#37

Post by 2devnull »

ghaff wrote: post #19
tsingy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book that made things click for me was Maths: A Student's Survival Guide by Jenny Olive. Give it a shot, use a calculator for everything. IMO in the age of computers let computers do the calculations and just learn to have intuitions.

I'd have to be convinced that you can develop those intuitions without basic arithmetic. Mind you, I'm not saying spend a lot of time mastering long division or whatever. (I'd probably have to look up the technique myself.) But I think some level of numeric fluency is probably necessary.

“I'd probably have to look up the technique myself.”

No offense but I am pretty sure that was the point. If it’s math you forget, it’s not math worth learning. Learn what you want or need to know. The rest is dross.

Re: A guide for people who want to self-study the basics of computer science

#38

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

totierne2 wrote: post #12

I am looking for a bottle of computer science motivation for my 16 year old. I do an hour a week coding with him. It is not enough, he does no coding in between times. There are other things he prioritises ahead of coding. (School, music, YouTube videos, and chess.)

Appeal to his music interests. This book looks pretty good and uses free tools:

https://www.routledge.com/Introduction-to-Digital-Music-with...

Re: A guide for people who want to self-study the basics of computer science

#39

Post by satvikpendem »

hahhahanananana wrote: post #6

> High School Mathematics Whenever I try to catch up with maths (in Khan Academy and elsewhere), I always end up in an awkward state where I keep recursively researching less and less advanced subjects because of gaps of various sizes in my fundamental knowledge. It's incredibly demotivating.

Why not start from the beginning, ie pre-K on up, as the other commenter mentioned? I've done something similar for teaching myself web development (since it's not taught often in CS degree programs), starting from bare HTML, adding CSS, adding Javascript, adding TypeScript, adding React, and so on. Now I have a good foundation from which to build anything I want. So too with mathematics or really any subject.

Re: A guide for people who want to self-study the basics of computer science

#40

Post by poulsbohemian »

hahhahanananana wrote: post #6

> High School Mathematics Whenever I try to catch up with maths (in Khan Academy and elsewhere), I always end up in an awkward state where I keep recursively researching less and less advanced subjects because of gaps of various sizes in my fundamental knowledge. It's incredibly demotivating.

My 13 year old is a very good student, currently taking high school math classes while in middle school... one of the things that the public school system hasn't figured out is how to make any of it relevant. So sure, she's brilliant and flies through the material, but she'd be the first to tell you it's just puzzles, it has no actual meaning to her. I was the opposite - because it had no meaning to me, I couldn't understand it and was a terrible math student. But, once I could view it through the lens of computer science, suddenly it had meaning and I did fine.

My oldest daughter was a terrible student. But she would say to me "If they taught history class the way you explain historical events around the dinner table, I would have been a lot more interested in studying."

So point being - it's probably not you, a lot of it really is the way we approach k-12 education. In hindsight, I'm not sure college is any better and may be worse what with the approach of hazing and weeding out.

Post reply on HN