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How MIT OpenCourseWare transformed a learner's life
- blazespin 9y agoAhhh, makes perfect sense. Someone who has the wherewithal to grind through self study is probably a pretty ideal engineer to hire, even if their education was a bit substandard. It's pretty easy to pick up in an interview if they actually learned the academic bits.
- tracker1 9y agos/substandard/atypical/ Just because it isn't the norm, doesn't mean it's substandard.
- LA_Banker 9y agoUniversity CS courses tend to be heavy on varyingly useful theory, light on practical knowledge. Which, fine, that's like most university degrees even in the most vocational of fields. So while this dude's "degree" might be substandard (MIT-OCW vs. MIT-MIT), I'd argue their education – at least in terms of applicability and self-direction – is equal, if not superior.
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- vldx 9y agoIt's significantly strong signal for conscientiousness, which from my understanding is highly correlated w/ certain cognitive attributes; this in combination w/ certain low agreeableness (not being influenced by the "traditional family") and apparent intellectual openness -- is good enough bet for me :)
- Dangeranger 9y agoOver the past six years OCW has aided in my evolution as a self educated programmer as well. I just made a donation. If you want to donate directly here is the link: https://crowdfund.mit.edu/project/6629 https://crowdfund.mit.edu/project/6629
- warent 9y agoHi everyone, Wyatt Arent here. When this article was proposed, it was unexpected and I'm still humbled. It's a privilege to have an opportunity to inspire and help as much as I can. Thanks for your time, keep kicking ass, here's to continued growth and evolution of us all
- Dangeranger 9y agoHave you written about your journey from GED to Google? If you have I would be interested in reading it.
- warent 9y agoMaybe someday when I'm much older and have more to include in my story
- yawz 9y agoWell done! This is very impressive. IMHO, curiosity and desire to learn form the basis of any good technologist career. And arguably they are very important for a happy and fulfilled life. I applaud your tenacity.
- warent 9y agoThank you for the kind words :)
- jasode 9y agoSince you successfully passed the Google interview, can you comment on how much the OCW content prepared you for it? Or did you have to supplement with other algorithm books? I believe many people would find your self-taught-no-CS-degree experience very interesting.
- whoami_nr 9y agoYes, Even I want to know this too. I am an aspiring self taught developer. Can you please elaborate on the courses you specifically took, any extra books you referred to and any side projects ? I would really like to know more about your experience in detail as I feel it might help with my journey.
- bmay 9y ago6.042J (Math for CS) is pretty challenging. Anyone who worked through it have any tips when you're stuck? Maybe slightly easier problems to supplement with for practice?
- HiroshiSan 9y agoRead an introduction to proofs oriented book such as Book of Proof or my personal favorite: https://www.amazon.ca/Mathematical-Proofs-Transition-Advanced-Mathematics/dp/0321797094 https://www.amazon.ca/Mathematical-Proofs-Transition-Advance...
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago$150+? Holy fuck.
- HiroshiSan 9y agoYeah steep price, it was a required textbook for my intro to proofs class and I don't regret the purchase...it's one I'll be coming back to often throughout my undergrad.
- sn9 9y agoHammack's Book of Proof is freely available online and has the solutions to all odd numbered exercises: http://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/ http://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/
- linkmotif 9y agoThis is awesome. I just don't understand why we need to donate to OCW. Why can't MIT with its mega endowment fund OCW? Why do ordinary people need to donate to these mega institutions to fund things that mega endowed entities (the government, these mega universities) should be paying for. It's not like OWC is Wikipedia. OCW is associated with MIT. Seems unfair to crowdfund something and then let MIT get the brand recognition. Especially since MIT is so rich.
- PrimHelios 9y agoWikipedia also has a huge amount of money. I get what you're saying, but the comparison doesn't really work =P
- burkaman 9y agoIsn't 100% of Wikipedia's money from donations? Maybe they don't need to raise money every year, but eventually they do need people to donate. MIT doesn't, they have other sources of funding. That was the point of the comparison.
- throwaway7645 9y agoThe problem with Wikipedia is that even though they're getting 10x more money than ever, their operating costs are always growing, and they're constantly increasing the amount of money they spend like a runaway train....or so I've read.
- rocgf 9y agoWikipedia is part of a non-profit whose purpose is to spread free information in the world, while MIT is also (supposedly) a non-profit which takes thousands of hundreds of dollars from its students. Not sure if Wikipedia has any other sources of income, but whatever they may be, they're not even close to the potency of MIT.
- enknamel 9y agoI believe a lot of endowments have only specific uses. You can't just spend as much as you want on whatever you want. It also gets buy-in from the community. Even if you can afford to run something for free, accepting donations is a great way to measure your impact.
- olleromam91 9y agoDo they not offer Videos of Lectures anymore?
- johnsonjo 9y agoThey definitely still do have videos. I use OCW quite a bit. Producing the videos, formatting, distributing, and hosting them is more expensive then going without them so sometimes they go without them.
- lnanek2 9y agoMost free video lectures throughout the web have been removed due to lawsuits against the institutions for not providing subtitles for the disabled.
- schoen 9y agoI think you're thinking of what happened to UC Berkeley, but I'm not sure this is true of "most" lectures. After all, many lectures already have subtitles, some lectures were produced outside the U.S. or not produced with Federal funding, some lectures were produced by institutions that may disagree with the interpretation of the law advanced in the Berkeley case, some lectures were produced by institutions that may not have been targeted with such claims, and some lectures are hosted by entities other than the institutions that produced them.
- julian_1 9y agoWould you know if they might still be available directly from MIT, perhaps after accepting some type of legal indemnity?
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Do they not offer Videos of Lectures anymore? Some courses have video lectures, some do not. OCW varies in what resources are available from course to course.
- JackFr 9y agoJust today MIT receives anonymous unrestricted $140 million gift. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/06/07/mit-receives-million-unrestricted-gift/SHAslb66k1qiuvxHB85XcP/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/06/07/mit-receives-mi... $13.2 billion dollar endowment. Operating budget of $3.3 billion dollars. $1.6 billion dollars in sponsored research. I think my wallet can safely stay in my pocket.
- linkmotif 9y agoThat's what I'm saying!
- linux_devil 9y agoLikewise, OCW is one of the key learning I ever had in my career. Resource crunch and lack of good professor were not a problem with the internet and online course. I took OCW algorithms and data structure course and I still remember all the data structures and algorithms being taught in the course. Not just OCW , I find Stanford edu , Berkeley, coursera and udacity really helpful. Thank you to everyone involved in making online coursework accessible. I feel indebted and thankful to this community.
- imranq 9y agoMIT OCW has been incredible for me as well, but I always get stuck on a concept or wish I was in a structured setting. Any tools or tips that helped you along the way? I was thinking of starting some live study circles for the next topic.
- hagakure0c 9y agoHope he makes it at Google with only a pdf where most hold a Phd or at least a double Msc.
- icantdrive55 9y agoDoes the spinish really matter? I have notice people without degrees work harder. I'm suprised more companies don't take advantage of people whom are self-taught, and hungry. Actually, Thiel figured out where the magic comes from?
- ghost-monk 9y agoQuick question: as an "new-grad" applicant with two internships AND an internal referral, my application to Google was categorically rejected on the basis that they are "no longer hiring fresh undergraduates for the Software Engineer position". No initial phone screen, just an automatic email. Given that this self-taught dev was given an interview, would I be better off applying without listing my CS degree and just highlight professional experience, GitHib, etc and say I am "self-taught"?
- neivin 9y agoI know at least 3 people who are starting at Google this year in new grad positions. Maybe you just didn't make the cut?
- ghost-monk 9y agoQuite possibly. Had a mock interview with one of their senior engineers on campus who was impressed and referred me, so I was surprised at being rejected before even the initial phone screen. The rejection email mentioned a new policy of "no new grads (bachelors) for fulltime SWE". Also possible that I was referred to a particular position which doesn't consider new grads. Do you happen to know if your acquaintances get hired on as fulltime SWE or something different(SRE, residency, etc)?
- vmarsy 9y agoWhat position was this for? Maybe they have a quota of new undergrad from a specific school per year (If they assume that every school they go to has at least X% of candidates) or an overall quota. "no longer hiring fresh undergraduates for the Software Engineer position" might only be for your school for this year. Also most companies would consider "fresh undergraduates" people graduating soon or who graduated less than 12 months ago so you still have time. In general you don't want to spam a company for the same position, it's good to wait for 8-12 months before re-applying, so if your desired position usually accept fresh new-grad, you might want to retry before [your graduation date + 12 months] but after at least ~8 months. > Given that this self-taught dev was given an interview He isn't a fresh undegraduate, check out his linkedin, he seem to have around 2 years of Dev experience, and 3 of freelance. So he probably didn't fall in the "new grad" track.
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- kelukelugames 9y agoWhat does a "very traditional family" mean?
- vldx 9y agoI think it means a conservative family, which not only does not nurture the apparent aptitude of the kid for programming, but maybe also actively prevents it from any further development; due various reasons, but probably mostly, because of their incoherent belief systems. I've personally had been through something similar, albeit not in such radical way. My parents bought me the eastern block's Apple II clone when I was at age of 8, but despite that, later in my teenage years I had to constantly overcome various forms of pressure – i.e. this computer won't make your living when you grow up, so stop f*cking around and get more interested in your high school material, because as it goes it seems you won't be even able to finish it. We're kind of joking now w/ my parents around that, but boy - it was no fun back then.
- njloof 9y agoWhy does this still happen in a modern society? I understand the Eastern Bloc wasn't voluntary, but... in Virginia?
- vldx 9y agoYeah, I'm not born under such regime and haven't lived through it, but from my gatherings talking to older people – actually, the eastern block had strong emphasis on various engineering disciplines and solid tradition in computer science. This is not something political in my opinion.
- qntty 9y agoAre you American? It's not that uncommon in America outside of the upper/upper-middle class, especially below the Mason–Dixon line.