3 ms·

I see a post like this on HN once every few weeks, and as wonderful as it is to have a plethora of organized CS courses of study, I really wish similar things e

by biohax2015 9y ago

I see a post like this on HN once every few weeks, and as wonderful as it is to have a plethora of organized CS courses of study, I really wish similar things existed for other topics. I'm fascinated by economics, political science, and literature but I cannot find a good place to truly educate myself on these topics. Instead, I'm left jumping from MOOC to MOOC and scouring whatever Wiki entries I can find.

cmadan 9y ago
Same here, wish there were similar resources for other topics.
i6Respawns 9y ago
You are not alone, and the good thing is Economics, political science, and literature are all highly literary. So read a book! Have you heard of Keynes, Smith, Marx, Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, Emerson, Tolstoy, or Conrad? Great! Each of them has no less than three legendary books that you can spend weeks to months to years studying. Computer science is a bit different in that the landscape is fresh and the resources constantly shifting and growing, but the old fields, as always, can be studied safely on ink and paper. You start with one author, you go through his or her influences, contemporaries, pupils, and you are guaranteed to have a healthy amount of daily reading material.
- biohax2015 9y ago
  Reading texts is great, but it's only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to becoming educated in these topics. In the classroom, students read, discuss with their peers and professors, read and write essays, and are lectured by very smart people. You can only get so much out of the literature without the right tutelage.
nsriv 9y ago
For economics at least, there is this rich online textbook called The Economy, published by The CORE Project (Curriculum in Open-access Resources in Economics). It's opinionated in its approach, in that it stems from students and instructors believing conceptual economic education as it exists today is fundamentally broken and fails to address inequality effectively. http://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/0-3-contents.html#contents http://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/0-3-contents....
adamnemecek 9y ago
Amazing point. Another bad thing is that the books I come across on Amazon simply don't...idk scratch the itch.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Distance learning with a traditional university, or The Open University (OU), might be what you're after.

cmadan 9y ago

Same here, wish there were similar resources for other topics.

i6Respawns 9y ago

You are not alone, and the good thing is Economics, political science, and literature are all highly literary. So read a book! Have you heard of Keynes, Smith, Marx, Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, Emerson, Tolstoy, or Conrad? Great! Each of them has no less than three legendary books that you can spend weeks to months to years studying. Computer science is a bit different in that the landscape is fresh and the resources constantly shifting and growing, but the old fields, as always, can be studied safely on ink and paper. You start with one author, you go through his or her influences, contemporaries, pupils, and you are guaranteed to have a healthy amount of daily reading material.

biohax2015 9y ago
Reading texts is great, but it's only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to becoming educated in these topics. In the classroom, students read, discuss with their peers and professors, read and write essays, and are lectured by very smart people. You can only get so much out of the literature without the right tutelage.

nsriv 9y ago

For economics at least, there is this rich online textbook called The Economy, published by The CORE Project (Curriculum in Open-access Resources in Economics). It's opinionated in its approach, in that it stems from students and instructors believing conceptual economic education as it exists today is fundamentally broken and fails to address inequality effectively. http://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/0-3-contents.html#contents http://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/0-3-contents....

adamnemecek 9y ago

Amazing point. Another bad thing is that the books I come across on Amazon simply don't...idk scratch the itch.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

Distance learning with a traditional university, or The Open University (OU), might be what you're after.