Usually yes - but it depends. Anything programming related I rarely like as a lecture and completely agree with you, unlike it's general concepts and then it de

Usually yes - but it depends. Anything programming related I rarely like as a lecture and completely agree with you, unlike it's general concepts and then it depends, see below. I'm an avid reader, so historically I always favored reading and only the last few years did I get a more nuanced opinion with exposure to new subjects and lecturers. On the other hand, when I took "Medical Neuroscience" [0], a pretty heavy course with 16 hrs/week ~25 hours (or was it 35?) lectures total (the 1st edition of that course - I have not checked if they made any changes to the edition online now, Coursera switched to a different course format), at least for the duration of the course I ignored the textbook [1] even though I had it. The lecturer was mesmerizing, I just started the videos and listened for hours - and actually learned. The fact that most of the time you do want to take that textbook (even for this exact same subject) is that it's exceedingly rare to find such a specimen of a teacher. Similarly with basic physiology lectures, even though they were done cheaply and he has stopped making new ones Aaron Mullally's lectures are of the same kind, I could just listen and listen and learn stuff. I tried many different ones, all of them prepared more "professionally" (I don't like that word because the dirtiest and cheapest solution can still be more professional than the one with the best packaging, but you know what I mean, I hope). Math, physics, chemistry, biology: It depends (so the same), I found lectures - I guess that actually means I found lecturers - that at least for me are better than learning the same from a book. Another example where given the choice between book and lecture I would take the lecture any time: [3] (and that is 100% because of the person giving the lecture). [0] https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience [1] http://www.sinauer.com/neuroscience-621.html http://www.sinauer.com/neuroscience-621.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JRvRB-VkJ3yeSEdXpe9ew https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JRvRB-VkJ3yeSEdXpe9ew [3] https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-biology-secret-life-mitx-7-00x-3 https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-biology-secret-life-...