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Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

calnewport.com

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Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#11

Post by goldfeld »

tangue wrote: post #6

This is written from a student perspective, where "mastering" means passing the exam. I'll stick with Norvig's 10 000 hours.

Exactly. When he says "Expertise and mastery give you the career capital to earn more money and enjoy lifestyle perks.", sure it does, but expertise is not achieved by "taming it" in 10 days or a year for that matter.

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#12

Post by goldfeld »

hdivider wrote: post #10

Learning for exams and learning for yourself are obviously different kinds of activities, even if the level of depth and rigour are similar. For maths-heavy subjects, I'm not really inclined to believe that traditional exams are the best way to assess a student's knowledge and understanding of the material (especially with regard to rote memorisation). Exams in such subjects haven't changed fundamentally in many many…

Yeah, I find the best learning happens when you put that knowledge immediately to work in a real world problem, and preferably one that's meaningful to you, as opposed to most term projects. And that's where learning for yourself makes so much more sense; if you're learning for yourself then you probably already have a real world application for it which got you into the goal of learning it in the first place.

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#13

Post by gall »

My best bursts of rapid learning are almost always project/puzzle driven. I didn't, for instance, set out to master FFT directly, but it seemed like something that could improve my abysmal performance on a Project Euler that I was working on, so I looked into it. I question (open-mindedly, not snarkily) the efficiency of ploughing through a course or series of courses. On the one hand there's the possibility of cross-pollination that having all sorts of cool bits of knowledge and techniques fraternizing in one's head for as long as possible promotes. On the other hand, there's the sense that the most efficient learning sequence is the one that matches the actual sequence of problems as they present themselves. Just-in-time learning of helicoptering, but if and only if you find yourself in a rooftop gunfight, as it were. Of course, then the issue becomes predicting forthcoming problems with enough lead time to learn the solution.

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#15

Post by accountoftheday »

confluence wrote: post #2

I'm inclined to actually believing a lot of this. When I got into university I found every course very easy, didn't attend any lectures, got all my workshops to run on the same day to reduce my face time and maxed out my free time to do whatever I wanted (work/friends/extra/etc). I'm a STEM major at a top 30 world ranked engineering school with good grades. I've often asked if I could max out my classes and finish a…

University in continental Europe is very much like what you describe, though a shift in public attitude towards higher education as a means of job qualification is (sadly) changing this.

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#16

Post by alter8 »

> he completed all 33 courses (...) in less than one year.

> That works out to around 1 course every 1.5 weeks

WTF? What kind of university imposes that you take only one course at any given time? It's not just linkbait, it starts from a wrong assumption. When you take many related courses simultaneously, you see the pieces meshing together and that helps learning. That's different from taking them in a serial manner.

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#17

Post by nnq »

accountoftheday wrote: post #15
confluence wrote: post #2

I'm inclined to actually believing a lot of this. When I got into university I found every course very easy, didn't attend any lectures, got all my workshops to run on the same day to reduce my face time and maxed out my free time to do whatever I wanted (work/friends/extra/etc). I'm a STEM major at a top 30 world ranked engineering school with good grades. I've often asked if I could max out my classes and finish a…

University in continental Europe is very much like what you describe, though a shift in public attitude towards higher education as a means of job qualification is (sadly) changing this.

unfortunately so... I just loved the "fk education, fk your diploma" I experienced when travelling and working in the USA... unfortunately EU is heading in the opposite direction

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#18

Post by navpatel »

I'll leave the discussion of how embellished this post/blog/exercise of MIT Comp Sci in 1 year is to other comments. But! The explanation of Fourier transforms from Scott's notes (http://www.scotthyoung.com/mit/fourier.pdf) is one of the must succinct ones I've read. I've always understood what the transform does, but the nitty gritty on how the equation works was awesome

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#19

Post by stephencanon »

dalke wrote: post #3

There was effectively nothing about linear algebra on that page. After some link followings, it appears that http://www.scotthyoung.com/mit/1806-exam.pdf is the exam which the student was happy with (having done worse on the first version). The final score appears to be 66 out of 100. Based on that test, I think the title is link-bait as it isn't "mastering linear algebra" but "passing an introductory algebra course.…

I am quite confused looking at that final; it seems incredibly basic for even an introductory course at MIT (that might have been a midterm when I was the graduate instructor for linear algebra at Berkeley).

Re: Mastering Linear Algebra in 10 Days: Astounding Experiments in Ultra-Learning

#20

Post by 47uF »

tangue wrote: post #6

This is written from a student perspective, where "mastering" means passing the exam. I'll stick with Norvig's 10 000 hours.

Agreed. I had an interesting experience recently when I decided to "relearn" math. I had taken calculus courses in high school and university, and aced all the exams. But when I eventually came back to calculus out of personal interest, I realized that I didn't know what a derivative was! I didn't know what a limit was! How did I pass those classes? And if someone who got the highest marks didn't learn anything, what about the people who were actually struggling? How many people in that class actually learned anything?

And I could say the same for my science classes, foreign language classes, etc. I don't think you really learn anything unless you really want to understand the material and you work hard to do so. And if that were the case, hour for hour you'll get what you put into it. You wouldn't be studying to an exam. You wouldn't be satisfied with 60%+ on that exam. You wouldn't restrict yourself to a specific curriculum. You wouldn't put time limits on your learning. Instead you would learn the thing that you decided you wanted or needed to learn, and however long it took for you to really understand it, that's how much time you would spend.

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