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

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

#41

Post by yt-sdb »

gareve wrote: post #34
yt-sdb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think so. My problem was that I had a weak grasp of many basics concepts, and more critically I did not know in which areas I was weak. So while it's easy ex post to say "I could skip such and such section", it would have been impossible to make this judgment ex ante.

And in fact, I think a failure mode many people make is trying to predict which things they already know and then skipping those. This allows for blind spots to persist.

I suppose the one way to skip things correctly would be to have a coach. But that comes at a new cost ($), but maybe that works for some people.

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

#42

Post by gnicholas »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #40
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 un…

The Khanmigo chatbot that KA is rolling out supposedly helps with this problem of relevance.

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

#43

Post by danielvaughn »

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.

Weirdly enough, mathematics is a very emotional subject for me. I never understood how it was taught in school, and had serious difficulty understanding it. As a result I just ignored it, believing that I didn't have the right brain for it.

Even though I taught myself how to code, I never went back and learned math, so my level of knowledge is at a basic high school level. It can be embarrassing at times, and every now and then I think about trying to learn it.

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

#44

Post by randmeerkat »

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.

> 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.

Try this course: https://www.edx.org/course/college-algebra-and-problem-solvi...

It uses the ALEKS system which identifies your weak points and brings you up to speed. Take notes during the process so you have something to reference in the future and won’t forget what you learned.

After you knock out the algebra course you’ll be ready for the precalculus course: https://www.edx.org/course/precalculus

The ALEKS system in the Precalculus course will also remediate anything you forgot from the Algebra course.

Hopefully this will help give you the confidence to go after more advanced maths once you finish both courses. Be kind to yourself, math, like anything, is a skill, it takes time and practice.

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

#45

Post by LocalH »

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.)

Then stop focusing on trying to get him to code, and focus on his music, his chess, his YouTube videos (especially if he has aspiration to be a content creator rather than a passive consumer), and his academics. Maybe related to one of those things, you could gently try to build a bridge between them and coding. However, don't force it. If you force it, you're essentially going to be raising someone who hates programming because "it's that shit my mom/dad forced me to do when I had no interest in doing it, I really wanted to be developing my chess game instead".

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

#46

Post by lostmsu »

dybber wrote: post #24
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.)

1) Make him come up with the projects to do. Use brainstorming techniques. Only help by guiding, not by telling him to do specific things 2) Build your similar own projects as well 3) Try with electronics. For that age group I have had good succes with MicroPython on ESP32’s + various sensors/actuators. The first thing I do is connect an LED strip with RGB LED’s and let them play with that. 4) Find him peers with the…

> Make him come up with the projects to do. Use brainstorming techniques. Only help by guiding, not by telling him to do specific things

I found it difficult to do with a person who did not get how to use control flow and can not mentally combine multiple control flow constructs.

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

#47

Post by qup »

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.)

Chess-related chatbot? Something his friends/chat room/twitch can interact with, that has some kind of chess functionality.

Look up "aol chat coms" for inspiration from the 90s.

There used to be bots that played a scrambler game in AOL chat, you could make a chess-related one.

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

#48

Post by xwowsersx »

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…

What did you do after you completed the K-8?

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

#49

Post by Zolomon »

ggr2342 wrote: post #28

For understanding higher math I have found this primer course extremely useful: Introduction to Mathematical Thinking by Keith Devlin (Stanford) https://www.coursera.org/learn/mathematical-thinking

I read this book which helped me understand what it finally meant to think mathematically. Highly recommended, Keith is a fantastic lecturer.

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

#50

Post by noSyncCloud »

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…

This is really inspiring, thanks for sharing. I should do likewise. I wound up dropping out of school (had kids too early, don't ask), which was... not a good decision. I do work as a developer but I need more domain knowledge in mathematics. Never too late to start, I guess.
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