Online Learning
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
-Mark Twain
Online Learning
I believe most learning happens outside the classroom, and have learned more of my day to day skills for work online than at college. I started with Prof. Gilbert Strang’s classes on Calculus reviewing for AP calculus BC. I had a great teacher, but at the time I could not concentrate during class. I needed the ability to pause and rewind parts of lessons. I ended up getting a 5!
During Undergrad I supplemented most of my Math classes with the MIT OpenCourseware and the great Statistics 110: Probability class by Joe Blitzstein. Having the lectures on demand helped me review any topics I had trouble with and give me extra problem sets. My Linear Algebra Professor called me out after a test because I solved the equations in a way not covered in class. When I told him I was taking the class from MIT he recommended the lectures on Eigenvalues to the class. I was able to get world class education online, and have regular in person office hours which was a great combination.
During my Senior year I had thoughts on becoming an Actuary but wasn’t 100%, so to improve my chances on getting a job I knew I had to learn to program. I took a programming class at Geneseo on Java and felt like I learned nothing. I did not stop there since back in elementary school I remember playing with “Turtle graphics” and was fascinated with the ability that I can write commands on the screen and see the output executed exactly. I wanted to recreate that feeling and was pointed towards Python
I started with codecademy’s Python class and like many other once I finished I went “And now what?” I got my feet wet but not at the level I’d be comfortable putting python down on my resume. Well I used MIT for my major, why not for computer science? I highly recommend 6.00.1x as an introduction to computer science. Much harder than codeacademy and goes into how to think like a computer scientist rather than focus on syntax.
While I worked at Integrated Media Solutions I was tired of having to use the “Portal” which was a UI built to access client data. At the time I did not know SQL very well; Just a high level, but was determined to learn so I could save hours every week avoiding a manual data pull. I took the a Stanford MOOC about on data bases
but would now recommend taking the course codecademy’s learn sql. Learning SQL was instrumental for getting my next job at adMarketplace. I learned enough to pass the coding test during the interview, and then really leveled up during my first month at work. Another boost for my transition to a more data heavy role was from teamleada.com I was fortunate to be one of the early users and thus able to interact with the founders and get a free code review.
I took the Machine Learning class by andrew Ng, but it was a bit too premature. Another great part about MOOC’s is that I could just stop at lecture 3 and return a year when I was ready. Another great class I would recommend to an aspiring data scientist is Analytics Edge by MIT, which was great for an introduction to different analytical techniques, and real world examples.
So Why go to college?
I do not go as far as James Altucher to say College is waste, there are many benefits a brick and mortar college provides that MOOC’s currently fall short on.
- Collaboration: I had one MOOC that had the class divided up to do a group project. With the high attrition rate from online classes this did not turn out well. the lack of accountability had most students not showing up.
- Network: When I meet fellow alumni I have an instant connection about professors and the the school I spent four years in. Sure I have forums to foster a relationship with MOOC’s but as of now I don’t feel close with anyone I took classes with.
- Curriculum: This is changing fast, when I started it was difficult to find out which classes should I take and what order. Now you have Udacity micro degrees or Coursera specializations which help guide students. One con is you get students that are less well rounded if they only take specialization classes instead of general education classes.
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