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Udacity and the future of online universities

blogs.reuters.com

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Re: Udacity and the future of online universities

#31

Post by webspiderus »

iandanforth wrote: post #30
unignorant wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm that his reasoning is correct. The word on the street is that Sebastian alienated the powers-that-be at Stanford.

I know of at least one Stanford student who feels swindled by this transition to online classes. 1. For some stanford costs a lot of money while online it's free and 2. The time taken developing this class may take away from the in person experience, further reducing the value of attending classes at Stanford. Any idea if these feelings are wide spread? I only have the one sample.

As another sample, I'll say I'm far from feeling swindled. I was a bit disappointed that the publicly available ML class and its Stanford equivalent only differed in one optional discussion a week - but I certainly don't feel the time taken developing the class took away from the in person experience, and I do think Andrew Ng and the staff were more available for Stanford students than they were for those taking the class online (which I view as the justification for the Stanford tuition costs).

The cryptography class I'm taking this quarter is more to my liking in that aspect, as in addition to the video lectures (which I assume will make up the bulk of the public offering), there is another 2 hours of lecture and a discussion that cover additional material. In this kind of a set up, the added benefit for the Stanford students from an educational standpoint certainly seems more tangible.

Re: Udacity and the future of online universities

#34

Post by Homunculiheaded »

iandanforth wrote: post #30
unignorant wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm that his reasoning is correct. The word on the street is that Sebastian alienated the powers-that-be at Stanford.

I know of at least one Stanford student who feels swindled by this transition to online classes. 1. For some stanford costs a lot of money while online it's free and 2. The time taken developing this class may take away from the in person experience, further reducing the value of attending classes at Stanford. Any idea if these feelings are wide spread? I only have the one sample.

I find this attitude really strange. The value in going to Stanford isn't that you get to take the physical classes, it's that you can walk up to Prof. Ng's office (and/or similar caliber profs) and have a chat, and more importantly target yourself to be doing some research under them before you graduate.

Having merely taken a class with someone big in the field (especially a large class) is essentially an interesting point of trivia to bring up at dinner sometime. If anything these online courses are about demonstrating that the scarcity of chairs in a great professors classroom is rather artificial. Having done research under (even if it's pretty trivial stuff you personally do) someone great will really have an impact on your career.

If you're an undergrad and your not spending a good amount of your time talking one on one with researchers you have access to you're not taking advantage of a huge benefit of attending a university.

Re: Udacity and the future of online universities

#35

Post by gallamine »

Homunculiheaded wrote: post #34
iandanforth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of at least one Stanford student who feels swindled by this transition to online classes. 1. For some stanford costs a lot of money while online it's free and 2. The time taken developing this class may take away from the in person experience, further reducing the value of attending classes at Stanford. Any idea if these feelings are wide spread? I only have the one sample.

I find this attitude really strange. The value in going to Stanford isn't that you get to take the physical classes, it's that you can walk up to Prof. Ng's office (and/or similar caliber profs) and have a chat, and more importantly target yourself to be doing some research under them before you graduate. Having merely taken a class with someone big in the field (especially a large class) is essentially an interestin…

Additionally, you can actually make relationships with these folks, which are highly useful in the future for recommendations, etc.

Re: Udacity and the future of online universities

#36

Post by etrain »

silverlake wrote: post #16

It looks like Khan Academy for college-level, semester long classes. He should target the University of Phoenix's crappy online program. Their parent company, the Apollo Group, has a market cap of $7B. Thrun could easily take a huge bite out of that.

While I agree that a new education startup could go after something like the University of Phoenix, I'm not sure that Thrun and his crew are going for that.

To me, the University of Phoenix represents a credential factory. People see that all the jobs they want require a college degree, and so they go the easiest route to get that. I don't believe that University of Phoenix (or most of the other big for-profit names) have a strong interest in educating people, nor do I think that their customers are really interested in getting an education - instead they're interested in getting a piece of paper that says they're qualified to do the job they want.

Thrun seems to have far more noble, though possibly less profitable, goals in mind.

Re: Udacity and the future of online universities

#37

Post by riffraff »

dangoldin wrote: post #28
gallamine wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, does this explain the unexpected delay of the Spring ML-Class? I haven't heard any news until a few days ago when I got an email saying there were delays in starting the new semester.

I'm interested in this question too. Two of my classes both sent the same type of email. I'd be very surprised if these aren't related.

I got the same mail from about 5 or 6 of them, just fyi

Re: Udacity and the future of online universities

#38

Post by alexsb92 »

dangoldin wrote: post #28
gallamine wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, does this explain the unexpected delay of the Spring ML-Class? I haven't heard any news until a few days ago when I got an email saying there were delays in starting the new semester.

I'm interested in this question too. Two of my classes both sent the same type of email. I'd be very surprised if these aren't related.

All of the January classes have sent out the same email. Been receiving them for the last few days.

Re: Udacity and the future of online universities

#39

Post by riffraff »

mtrn wrote: post #6

Took the AI class and it was just amazing. I never had a professor more passionate (yet still rational :) about a subject. Even though the course made the math and the background sound simple, it wasn't. There is a probably thin line between breaking-down things into a set of well-partitioned and easy to understand statements and oversimplifying really complex systems. Also, the applications (edge detectors, robotic…

having taken all three classes (AI, DB, ML), I have to point out that in my opinion (and that of other people I spoke with) ai-class was _by far_ the worsely organized, passion of the teachers notwithstanding.

But I am sure Know Labs learned a lot from it and they can only improve.

Re: Udacity and the future of online universities

#40

Post by LaGrange »

riffraff wrote: post #39
mtrn wrote: post #6

Took the AI class and it was just amazing. I never had a professor more passionate (yet still rational :) about a subject. Even though the course made the math and the background sound simple, it wasn't. There is a probably thin line between breaking-down things into a set of well-partitioned and easy to understand statements and oversimplifying really complex systems. Also, the applications (edge detectors, robotic…

having taken all three classes (AI, DB, ML), I have to point out that in my opinion (and that of other people I spoke with) ai-class was _by far_ the worsely organized, passion of the teachers notwithstanding. But I am sure Know Labs learned a lot from it and they can only improve.

The website itself sucked, the quizzes weren't very usable, but the videos themselves were wonderful — in my opinion the best. And I wouldn't be surprised if that was the part that's hardest to improve on, and also the most important one.
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