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>> why are students paying for that? Because it's a LOT better than online courses are at the moment. I've used Coursera/iTunes U/Udemy etc. a lot since they c

>> why are students paying for that? Because it's a LOT better than online courses are at the moment. I've used Coursera/iTunes U/Udemy etc. a lot since they came out and only ever finished a couple of things. Motivation is a big issue. Also very little of the knowledge I gained through it has stuck because it is not very engaging. I recently started University (mature student) and the things I'm learning stick much easier as you are constantly forced to pair with people to debate problems and work as teams to answer questions. This repetition and group debate is invaluable. Despite participating on the forums when doing online courses they don't come close. Previously, as a self-taught programmer I couldn't see the value in 90% of university courses and thought they were going to start struggling thanks to MOOC's. Now, as a student, I can see that they do offer quite a lot of value (by value I mean increasing my knowledge, not salary after degree). They are certainly very inefficient, but I would certainly consider my program value for money (although I am a student in the UK so fees are lower than a lot of places).

garysieling 10y ago
It sounds like my experience with school is similar to yours - I also felt that being self-taught it was helpful to have a program of courses, to round out deficiencies in my own knowledge. Among the things you can get for free online, I think conference talks can be a better value for the time than some of the online classes. They are more self-contained, so you don't have to worry about finishing an entire course, and generally more focused on real-world use cases. I've also found that browsing at random, and watching things that sound interesting works well for increasing what I remember. I'm currently building a search engine around this idea- https://www.findlectures.com/?p=1&class1=Technology&type1=Conference https://www.findlectures.com/?p=1&class1=Technology&type1=Co...

garysieling 10y ago

It sounds like my experience with school is similar to yours - I also felt that being self-taught it was helpful to have a program of courses, to round out deficiencies in my own knowledge. Among the things you can get for free online, I think conference talks can be a better value for the time than some of the online classes. They are more self-contained, so you don't have to worry about finishing an entire course, and generally more focused on real-world use cases. I've also found that browsing at random, and watching things that sound interesting works well for increasing what I remember. I'm currently building a search engine around this idea- https://www.findlectures.com/?p=1&class1=Technology&type1=Conference https://www.findlectures.com/?p=1&class1=Technology&type1=Co...