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OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

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Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#61

Post by maxDemianx »

tombert wrote: post #2

This is a bit hypocritical coming from a self-taught dropout, but I have kind of grown to dislike a lot of these "learn programming on your own!" things/bootcamps/courses. This isn't because of some idea that it's bad to learn programming for fun, but more that I think it's kind of reductive to try and squeeze things down to a streamlined lesson to begin with...There's a reason college takes four or more years; it ta…

I'm with you, these are fine for learning to program for fun / hobby, but they don't constitute something as solid and foundamental as a proper 3-4 of consistent learning. Also general courses have a proper role to play in one's education, so that even if you're very specialized, you have general knowledge that inevitably comes handy in some situations in life. Moreover there is a certain well-roundedness, knowledge wise, that comes from such an education.

When you're on the other side of the table, interviewing candidate, it is as if you can spot them without even looking at their resume. They have a certain profile.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#62

Post by thrownblown »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #58
tombert wrote: post #2

This is a bit hypocritical coming from a self-taught dropout, but I have kind of grown to dislike a lot of these "learn programming on your own!" things/bootcamps/courses. This isn't because of some idea that it's bad to learn programming for fun, but more that I think it's kind of reductive to try and squeeze things down to a streamlined lesson to begin with...There's a reason college takes four or more years; it ta…

High school drop out turned software engineer here. I never had any success with these sort of programs. My advice is pick a hard problem (to you) and stick with it until you've solved it. Rinse and repeat. Eventually you will be pretty good at solving problems.

same background, but different advice: pick a problem you have and build a website that solves it. start with a trivial problem, then start adding javascript.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#63

Post by alexandercoward »

codesushi42 wrote: post #17

Does anyone have a similar resource for applied math? I am looking for something that goes beyond the standard calculus, linear algebra and stats material. For example, optimization, numerical analysis, stochastic processes, dynamical systems etc.

You could look at https://edeeu.education/subject/mathematics

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#64

Post by Bubbadoo »

snowron6 wrote: post #15
tempsy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my question is if there's even such a thing as a "non self taught front end developer"? No 4 year university will teach you React as part of a CS degree. Most probably won't even teach JavaScript. Point is, becoming a good developer is largely a self-taught discipline as is.

>No 4 year university will teach you React as part of a CS degree. Most probably won't even teach JavaScript. You're conflicting computer science with being a developer. A CS degree isn't about learning how to program in the industry.

A CS degree, especially at the undergraduate level, is mostly conceptual. It takes much experience to develop the intuition necessary to solve complex problems faced on the job.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#65

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

Given there is variation of skill at anything, there will be variation of skill at self-teaching. Not all self-teaching is created equal. If you’re not good at self-teaching, then you get a bad teacher every single time.

Colleges diversify this risk. A few teachers might be bad, a few will have their back to the gigantic lecture hall the whole time, etc. But averaged over all your classes, most of them are actually pretty good, and many TAs, tutoring center employees, classmates, etc., can help a ton. Plus you’ll practice and improve self-teaching the whole time.

Like it or not, college can command a high price for this standardization and diversification of teaching quality risk. It confers a status credential.

Meanwhile, if I see you are self-taught in a complex engineering discipline, so what? If you also have job experience already to back it up, then ok. If you’re asking me to be the first one to take a gamble on whether your particular instance of self-teaching led you to sufficient competency, no thanks, I don’t have time to take that risk.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#66

Post by codesushi42 »

alexandercoward wrote: post #63
codesushi42 wrote: post #17

Does anyone have a similar resource for applied math? I am looking for something that goes beyond the standard calculus, linear algebra and stats material. For example, optimization, numerical analysis, stochastic processes, dynamical systems etc.

You could look at https://edeeu.education/subject/mathematics

This is very interesting. Is this an online Masters or is it a free program?

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#67

Post by mulderc »

robomartin wrote: post #57
tombert wrote: post #2

This is a bit hypocritical coming from a self-taught dropout, but I have kind of grown to dislike a lot of these "learn programming on your own!" things/bootcamps/courses. This isn't because of some idea that it's bad to learn programming for fun, but more that I think it's kind of reductive to try and squeeze things down to a streamlined lesson to begin with...There's a reason college takes four or more years; it ta…

I disagree with you in one regard, I think you are taking the position of a young person who hasn't had much education outside of high school. Take a look at it from the perspective of a 30 or 40-something with some college or a degree in another domain looking to transition into CS. In this case, the fact that formal CS degrees are, I dare say, polluted, with irrelevant crap is a waste of time, money and brain power…

How was he forced to take a class on Marx? I have never seen that as a required course at any university.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#68

Post by cannabis_sam »

tombert wrote: post #9
tempsy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point here. Most college students don't even pick a major until their sophomore year. Many "self-taught" developers went to college and took "pointless" philosophy classes, they just decided later in life they wanted to learn software development. Most people who attend bootcamps have college degrees, including many in other engineering disciplines. College CS courses aren't necessarily des…

> College CS courses aren't necessarily designed to be practical; many are more theoretical and not really practical for day-to-day SWE jobs. This is the mentality that I really dislike about these courses. How exactly do you get to decide if something is just "theoretical" and "not really practical"? Everything in CS was purely theoretical at one point. It's easy to say "practical means stuff that is used in the ind…

The secret is to learn how to distill the useful parts of the theory into something useful in pratice

Then you can leave all these reactionary and narrow minded coders to their own devices, implementing suboptimal solutions.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#69

Post by CalChris »

If this is self taught then calculus shouldn't be core. It should be moved to advanced math and replaced by more linear algebra. Calculus is a beautiful course but linear algebra is central to data science and ai. Unless you're getting into topics that require it, 3 semesters of calculus will go unused. You can't know too much linear algebra and discrete math.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#70

Post by Merrill »

Pfhreak wrote: post #4
tombert wrote: post #2

This is a bit hypocritical coming from a self-taught dropout, but I have kind of grown to dislike a lot of these "learn programming on your own!" things/bootcamps/courses. This isn't because of some idea that it's bad to learn programming for fun, but more that I think it's kind of reductive to try and squeeze things down to a streamlined lesson to begin with...There's a reason college takes four or more years; it ta…

I'm 50/50 on this. Part of me really agrees with you -- you need time and practice and mistakes to learn this stuff. But also, I'm not sure it has to be wall clock time. Four years at university gets you breadth that is probably good for you as a human, and probably important for contextualizing your work as an engineer (oh hey, history might be a valuable lesson for your understanding of ethics. Art and literature m…

The 4 years of college includes a lot of non-college time during summers, breaks, holiday vacations, etc. There is no reason why a serious student shouldn't be actively learning 50 weeks a year, minus holidays, and putting in the same work time as his peers who entered the job market after high school. In which case, 3 years is easily enough. However, 3 * 50 * 40 is only 6000 hours, which won't make you an expert.

The coursework listed on github for the OSSU is likely thousands of hours if pursued diligently.

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