Thanks a bunch for making Class-Central. I have used it quite a bit and have told others about it. (Over the time I discovered that the type of courses that suits me the best reside mainly on Coursera, so the utility for me personally shrunk.)
This list is sorely missing some introductory mathematics courses required to build a foundation in CS (e.g Discrete Maths). If there are any course suggestions that anyone has, I'll gladly add those to the list.
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs.html - free "Foundations of Computer Science" book that combines discrete mathematics with C programming and some theory of computation stuff, a pretty good way to make things more practical
http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Elementary-Beyond... - very pleasant introductory discrete mathematics book, a welcome break from the usual "brick" format and covers some important topics that often do not make it into the normal discrete mathematics curriculum e.g. induction on trees.
Use an exploit on caprica to gain root access: +10%
I wonder if this offer stands from semester to semester, and therefore if he seeded an exploit (or several, given how the extra credit reads) or whether the whole thing is just more of his light-hearted style.
This is not an online class, but a collection of materials used by the Prof to teach the course at the university. You can view the lectures[0] and work through the programming assignments[1] at your own pace.
Machine Learning from Stanford:
Learn about the most effective machine learning techniques, and gain practice implementing them and getting them to work for yourself.
https://www.coursera.org/course/ml
My main aim with this list was to have a collection of lesser known (but awesome) courses. That's one reason why I stayed away from adding MIT's OCW or a MOOC on the list.
There's also Computer Architecture lectures[1] for CMU's graduate and undergraduate courses by Prof Onur Mutlu which I have been following lately. Assignments and further reading material are also available on the course website[2].
These are great tools to learn foundational computer science from outside of a classroom, but not an adequate substitute for a computer science degree (and I say this with no formal CS background myself). One could reasonably pace themselves through the class materials presented here, attempting the homeworks and tests while honestly assessing oneself, but employers especially want to see proof, and a degree carries far more weight than doing the same work but without the degree to show for it.
Pedigree and pedantics have taken precedence over hacking and creative problem solving, particularly in the Silicon Valley where a Stanfordcal degree and Googfacetwit work experience is expected.
When going for a CS degree, the usual rule of thumb is one should spend three hours studying for every hour in the classroom.
To get the education you'll get at a college, you'll have to spend those three years studying any how. So college is really like three years of independent study and one year of class time.
Why not just spend that year of time going to classes, learning things from professors (some of whom are quite knowledgeable, and doing cutting edge CS theory research), learning things from classmates and making social and networking connections? Perhaps private schools are expensive, but UC Berkeley, UIUC, UWashington, Georgia Tech are more affordable, especially with Pell grants etc. Especially part-time.
Also - people doing self-study tend to go right for the immediately useful stuff - how to make web pages in PHP and the like. How many people spend eight months studying calculus, then four months studying discrete math, then four months on graph theory, then four months on theory of computation, then four months studying logic gates and processors, then four months studying data structures etc.? What kind of code is someone who has not studied concurrent programming going to write when an application needs threading?
A degree is also a sign someone can stick with something for four years.
Of course a degree is no guarantee they know anything in and of itself.
Is this what the job listings (of what there were) said during the 2008-2009 recession? Is this what they said in 2001 after the dot-com crash?
They may not say them now, they may not have said them in 1999, but they certainly are requirements companies can (and do) put up during the years when people need a job most.
Passing basic HR filters is necessary for most job listings, and "equivalent experience" is harder to quantify than having a degree in the field from a name brand university. Also it is hardly a selling point to claim that one took an online class and did not receive credit for it.
Semi-related question: Anyone know of any good courses online that are intro to molecular and cellular biology related? Thanks, my grad school grades aren't the best and I think it's my lack of bio foundation that's hurting.
I mean, yes, but alas, my study habits are better with lectures and learning groups as a supplement to the written material. Any suggestions on specific books? I know just about any are good, however some are almost canonical(For example: Jackson is THE electromagnetism text, others will do, but just about everyone learns from Jackson. Is there such a thing with mol-bio?)
The courses at ADUni are really awesome. Though the resolution totally sucks and it feels rather old, they're the best thing around the Internet thats a tutorial on CS. They have everything from Algorithms and Discrete Maths to OOP and stuff. Check those out at http://www.aduni.org I'll probably send a pull request to whoever's maintaining the repo. Great job though, you've listed quite a lot of courses... ;)
I've been looking for a databases course focusing on the systems side of things (concurrency control, query planning, disk, etc.), but it seems like it's too niche. If anyone knows of one, I'd be really happy to hear about it.
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