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I love how there are these two parallel threads going in HNville: (1) COLLEGE SUCKS BURN IT DOWN and (2) "I'd like to learn complex things like machine learning

I love how there are these two parallel threads going in HNville: (1) COLLEGE SUCKS BURN IT DOWN and (2) "I'd like to learn complex things like machine learning and math that take more than reading 5 blog posts to master, how do I do it"? Sometimes this place just cracks me up. I honestly think the answer is pretty simple: go to college. It doesn't have to be expensive. Take a community college course in calculus or undergraduate-level probability. Skip the gen eds and don't worry about the degree if you want to learn something narrow like this. In any case, just find a mentor. On-the-job if you can, otherwise pay for a class. What you shouldn't do is try to self-study by reading a book. You can perhaps do this but only if you're smarter than average and more motivated than most. Since you probably aren't, just take a class. Night school, maybe a MOOC. Preferably something heavy on analysis or proofs. But you should do it with others. Math is a very social discipline, it's good to be able to discuss and have partners to work through things when you get stuck. And if you're like me, you WILL get stuck on things. This stuff is hard. Another thought: this whole "college is great"/"college is terrible" dichotomy seems to occur people people don't think enough about quality. I think bad colleges are terrible and great ones are fantastic. I don't know any way I'd have learned all the complex topics in math, stats, probability, etc., I did without attending a big 10 engineering school (UIUC in my case)

faceplanted 8y ago
OP says in the comment that he _went_ to university and didn't pick it up.
- HiroshiSan 8y ago
  There's not enough information in that comment. What kind of Math courses did he take? Did he ever take an intro to proofs course? Did any of his Math courses emphasize proofs? All the proof heavy courses I've taken, whenever new notation was introduced the professor would explain how to interpret it. And if they didn't someone would raise their hand and ask what it meant. Which brings me to another point, was OP an active learner? Did he ask questions when he didn't understand?
natalyarostova 8y ago
Fwiw I've self taught myself multivar calc and (so far) some phd stats. It's not glamorous though. It's thousands of hours working through textbooks, and requires some really intense levels of motivation. Also I wish I studied it in college, but didn't want to go back.
crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
Just because you choose to believe you need to be fed your information doesn't mean others do. I've tutored people carrying the thoughts you're expressing ("I need someone to teach me this because I'm not smart enough to learn it on my own"). The quickest way to success with them was shattering that myth. I did it by talking to them about their feelings/beliefs and helping them figure out practices for changing their minds about themselves. Here's a great paper called The Debugging Mindset on cultivating a growth oriented perspective an why it's important: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3068754 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3068754 I hope you can develop a more empowered perspective of yourself and others though reading it.
- eldavido 8y ago
  It's not about being "fed information". It's the reality that being around a motivated group of peers confers real advantage. I look at the history of art (e.g. Impressionists), YC, winning athletics programs, Silicon Valley, or just about any well-regarded academic department as evidence. These places don't do well just because they select the best, they also MAKE the best by creating an environment that fosters it.
  - mindcrime 8y ago
    Maybe your reality. Anecdotally, my peers never did anything of note to help me learn anything in any math classes. These days I am working on relearning the math I've forgotten, and going beyond where I stopped in college. I have found that a combination of books, YouTube videos of lectures, Kahn Academy, Math Overflow / math.se, and subreddits like /r/learnmath, etc. have been sufficient.
  - crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
    "The best" is purely subjective. I look at indigenous cultures who were able to resolve conflicts and share resources without hierarchical governments. They developed approaches to doing things western culture is only now relearning. Also, your "best people" developed systems to addict us with little concern for their systemic impacts. If that's your version of best, I want better.
MaxBarraclough 8y ago
> I don't know any way I'd have learned all the complex topics in math, stats, probability, etc., I did without attending a big 10 engineering school This is something the MOOC crowd often overlook. It's based on a misunderstanding of what a university gives you: university entry doesn't grant you access to some members-only club where they hide away the knowledge to keep it from the plebs (ignoring the open access movement, at least). Instead it grants you access to an environment in which you can learn effectively. The idea that MOOCs will threaten the existence of universities is absurd. It's already possible to get access to the sum of human knowledge without being enrolled at a university. It's always been possible. They're called books. But this stuff is hard, and attending a high-quality institution gives you a huge advantage in learning the material, compared to being self-taught. MOOCs may grant everyone access to lectures, but just as important is learning with high-quality peers. A MOOC is not the equivalent of being in a class with other smart and well-motivated students. Again, it's always been possible to learn this stuff independently, but your odds of succeeding are far lower that way. It's great that we have lots of freely available learning material online, but I really don't see that MOOCs are going to turn the world on its head the way some people seem to think. I'm ignoring accreditation here, of course. If you want to be a surgeon, you obviously do not have the option of teaching yourself, but in terms of learning maths/technology (and assuming knowledge - and not a certificate - is your goal), books have always been there. MOOCs are books++, not universities--. (With apologies to the pedants who might prefer the pre-positional operators.)
- nvarsj 8y ago
  You ignore the possibility that MOOCs can have peer interaction. In OMSCS at least, there is loads of peer interaction (via slack, email, forums) - more in fact than I ever had at my undergrad (which was a top 10 engineering school).
  - MaxBarraclough 8y ago
    That's a fair point, but I put a lot of stock in physical interaction. I suspect that being physically part of a class greatly reduces odds of drop-out, and improves group study. (Of course, this is an empirical claim, and I can't say I'm basing my opinion on a published study.) More cynically: some undergrads struggle to get out of bed for their midday lectures. They would not thrive in a MOOC, where there is less immediate pressure to drive their studies. I can see it working far better in the context of a masters degree, as you allude to.
elhudy 8y ago
>What you shouldn't do is try to self-study by reading a book. My experience has been that this is exactly how college math works; you pay for self-study. The professor reads directly out of a book (in poor English), or off of pre-made slides provided with the book, for 2-4 hours per week, and then you are left to do the problems from the book on your own time. Class populations are so large that if everyone had asked clarifying questions, we wouldn't have completed the readings. If your college experience was different I'm envious of that. Edit: as a fun side-note, our calc professor was well known for taking up the entire class to draw out a single proof on the chalkboard. As the chalkboard got full, he would incidentally erase his previous writing with his giant belly as he putzed across the room.
- admax88q 8y ago
  There are other benefits beyond being able to ask questions. Tests and deadlines provide motivation to do the actual work. Having a curriculum means that the content is laid out in a logical order that the professor believes should be achievable. There is a stupid amount of information out there. Breaking it down into a progression that students can follow in order to learn and understand it is incredibly important. If you're motivated enough then sure maybe you can just buy and read the textbook, although sometimes professors deviate from that when it's wrong. > Class populations are so large that if everyone had asked clarifying questions, we wouldn't have completed the readings. Good thing not everybody asks, and those that do ask are generally asking questions shared by a good chunk of the class.
  - ChuckMcM 8y ago
    > Tests and deadlines provide motivation to do the actual work. This is so true in my experience. As a young man I could listen to the lecture and say "Yeah, yeah, I got this." and then try to work the homework problems and realize that no, I didn't really understand it. It is hard to force yourself to do the work if you don't have a negative externality for not doing it.
  - elhudy 8y ago
    What you're saying is agreeable: taking a class provides a certain level of motivation that self-study doesn't provide, for most people. That doesn't conflict with the idea that typical college courses have little tangible value added. If you're ok paying a couple of grand for extra motivation, then I hope you truly have a good reason to be doing so, and that it pays off. This type of system doesn't really support people who just want to learn for the sake of it though.
metalsteady 8y ago
There's no reason to go to college for these so called lower div courses. They are often taught by TAs. The latter are not synonymous with great teaching. It's the 21st century, we have a wealth of textbooks now that are often better than all TAs and profs put together. These days one can easily put aside 1600 page doorstops (such Calc books often teach applied algorithms that were last relevant in 19th century) and opt for much more nimble, well-designed and actually relevant/rigorous books like those of Jay Cummings or Lara Alcock or Richard Hammack or the Dos Reis or Gary Chartrand or ...
stillbourne 8y ago
Don't listen to this asshat. There are 2 great resources for self education on Math. https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php/Main_Page https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php/Main_Page and http://people.math.sfu.ca/~cbm/aands/abramowitz_and_stegun.pdf http://people.math.sfu.ca/~cbm/aands/abramowitz_and_stegun.p... Have a nice day.
- eldavido 8y ago
  Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.
  - stillbourne 8y ago
    As a high school dropout that is self educated, I don't appreciate people dogging those who take the effort to forge their own path. You can learn complex topics outside a formal education system and your comment offered no specific assistance. So in the spirit of the holiday, thanks for nothing.
    - eldavido 8y ago
      So here's the thing: apart from you and maybe a few friends, nobody really cares about your "forging your own path". It may give your life meaning, which is important. But in any sort of professional / market context, people just emphatically. Do. Not. Care. Speaking from experience, I have often taken the hard path. I've always regretted it and often, if I'm being honest, it's out of a misguided sense of stubbornness. That's why I recommend trying college, to the OP. Maybe he can learn advanced mathematics by himself, in isolation. But that isn't the maximum-likelihood path. And when you're doing something hard, I've learned it pays to do everything you can to stack the deck in your favor. I think the main thing is to realize you only live one. I have friends who are more successful than me in every way. One earns literally 10x what I do, others work at more famous companies, still others receive absurd amounts of money from their parents for sitting on their ass. You can't choose your hand in life, but you can choose how you play it. So it's really up to you, whether you want to play the game on easy mode, or hard mode. Or whether you want to feel sorry for yourself or just make something of the hand you're dealt, though it may not be "fair".
UncleEntity 8y ago
I went to college and took a sum total of two math classes but have learned enough to reason out the many papers that don't have (pseudo) code but 'complex mathematical notation' -- which seems like almost all of them. https://github.com/Jam3/math-as-code https://github.com/Jam3/math-as-code was helpful...
geitir 8y ago
This is completely wrong. I am a recent graduate who is in stem and took up to calc 3. It is true you do learn notation but only what is necessary for the concepts and math of the calculus classes. I've run into the same problem as the op and most of the notation that acts as a barrier isn't matrix operators or integrals but rather symbols used in proof or niche cases that might be prevalent in a specific field but not in general University math courses.
cuspycode 8y ago
> What you shouldn't do is try to self-study by reading a book. I say do try self-study first and see if it works. You have absolutely nothing to lose by trying. It doesn't work for everyone, but you will quickly figure out if it works for you. Some people can absorb knowledge from books much more easily than from oral instruction, and for others it's the other way around.
akhilcacharya 8y ago
>I don't know any way I'd have learned all the complex topics in math, stats, probability, etc., I did without attending a big 10 engineering school (UIUC in my case) I feel so behind because I absolutely did not.
dang 8y ago
The paradox disappears when you stop anthropomorphizing HN and remember that a community of millions of people has a lot of different subgroups.
- eldavido 8y ago
  That is true. But you also have to acknowledge that this community isn't in any sense, "normal" (representative, average, etc) Most days I appreciate its uniqueness, but I find myself rolling my eyes at least once/week at some of the comments here. Here are some of what I'd call the "HN tropes": "Oh that hard thing? It's not that hard. I have never worked on that problem before, but can surely replicate that entire system in a week, because everyone working on it is an idiot and doesn't know what they're doing." "That traditional human behavior (e.g. marriage, buying a house, going to college)? I can squeeze 5% more efficiency out of life by completely ignoring the reality of human behavior, because my superhuman, almost robotic levels of conscientiousness and diligence that make it a horrible idea for 99% of the population, somehow don't apply to me. I beat the averages in everything I do." (I see that a bit in this thread. See also: playing games with credit card balance transfers, renting vs. buying "because I'll save the difference", trading options and thinking you won't fall into well-known behavioral traps) "Hard problem from another discipline (finance, accounting, medical science)? I can reinvent a clever algorithm ten times smarter than that, despite my complete lack of domain knowledge. No problem." "Incumbents are stupid. Anyone can beat them if they're clever." "I don't need to read history. Humans are irrelevant, if we just apply the right combination of game theory, economics, and some clever code, we can fix any problem. Politics and governance are stupid, avoidable problems if we just used the right system." (I see this a lot in Bitcoin discussions) I see these with alarming frequency here. You can certainly say I'm painting with too broad a brush but I've been here since 2009 and it comes up over and over. More than anything, I just laugh at it these days (not get mad).
  - tomhoward 8y ago
    For a site that attracts millions of visits and tens of thousands of comments a month, just once/week seems pretty good! Seriously: do you routinely see eye-rolling comments that don’t get downvoted or rebutted? I don’t. That’s what I like/appreciate about this place; yes you’ll get the tropes you mention, but you’ll invariably get an articulate response that points out the weakness or conceit.

faceplanted 8y ago

OP says in the comment that he _went_ to university and didn't pick it up.

HiroshiSan 8y ago
There's not enough information in that comment. What kind of Math courses did he take? Did he ever take an intro to proofs course? Did any of his Math courses emphasize proofs? All the proof heavy courses I've taken, whenever new notation was introduced the professor would explain how to interpret it. And if they didn't someone would raise their hand and ask what it meant. Which brings me to another point, was OP an active learner? Did he ask questions when he didn't understand?

natalyarostova 8y ago

Fwiw I've self taught myself multivar calc and (so far) some phd stats. It's not glamorous though. It's thousands of hours working through textbooks, and requires some really intense levels of motivation. Also I wish I studied it in college, but didn't want to go back.

crawfordcomeaux 8y ago

Just because you choose to believe you need to be fed your information doesn't mean others do. I've tutored people carrying the thoughts you're expressing ("I need someone to teach me this because I'm not smart enough to learn it on my own"). The quickest way to success with them was shattering that myth. I did it by talking to them about their feelings/beliefs and helping them figure out practices for changing their minds about themselves. Here's a great paper called The Debugging Mindset on cultivating a growth oriented perspective an why it's important: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3068754 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3068754 I hope you can develop a more empowered perspective of yourself and others though reading it.

eldavido 8y ago
It's not about being "fed information". It's the reality that being around a motivated group of peers confers real advantage. I look at the history of art (e.g. Impressionists), YC, winning athletics programs, Silicon Valley, or just about any well-regarded academic department as evidence. These places don't do well just because they select the best, they also MAKE the best by creating an environment that fosters it.
- mindcrime 8y ago
  Maybe your reality. Anecdotally, my peers never did anything of note to help me learn anything in any math classes. These days I am working on relearning the math I've forgotten, and going beyond where I stopped in college. I have found that a combination of books, YouTube videos of lectures, Kahn Academy, Math Overflow / math.se, and subreddits like /r/learnmath, etc. have been sufficient.
- crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
  "The best" is purely subjective. I look at indigenous cultures who were able to resolve conflicts and share resources without hierarchical governments. They developed approaches to doing things western culture is only now relearning. Also, your "best people" developed systems to addict us with little concern for their systemic impacts. If that's your version of best, I want better.

MaxBarraclough 8y ago

> I don't know any way I'd have learned all the complex topics in math, stats, probability, etc., I did without attending a big 10 engineering school This is something the MOOC crowd often overlook. It's based on a misunderstanding of what a university gives you: university entry doesn't grant you access to some members-only club where they hide away the knowledge to keep it from the plebs (ignoring the open access movement, at least). Instead it grants you access to an environment in which you can learn effectively. The idea that MOOCs will threaten the existence of universities is absurd. It's already possible to get access to the sum of human knowledge without being enrolled at a university. It's always been possible. They're called books. But this stuff is hard, and attending a high-quality institution gives you a huge advantage in learning the material, compared to being self-taught. MOOCs may grant everyone access to lectures, but just as important is learning with high-quality peers. A MOOC is not the equivalent of being in a class with other smart and well-motivated students. Again, it's always been possible to learn this stuff independently, but your odds of succeeding are far lower that way. It's great that we have lots of freely available learning material online, but I really don't see that MOOCs are going to turn the world on its head the way some people seem to think. I'm ignoring accreditation here, of course. If you want to be a surgeon, you obviously do not have the option of teaching yourself, but in terms of learning maths/technology (and assuming knowledge - and not a certificate - is your goal), books have always been there. MOOCs are books++, not universities--. (With apologies to the pedants who might prefer the pre-positional operators.)

nvarsj 8y ago
You ignore the possibility that MOOCs can have peer interaction. In OMSCS at least, there is loads of peer interaction (via slack, email, forums) - more in fact than I ever had at my undergrad (which was a top 10 engineering school).
- MaxBarraclough 8y ago
  That's a fair point, but I put a lot of stock in physical interaction. I suspect that being physically part of a class greatly reduces odds of drop-out, and improves group study. (Of course, this is an empirical claim, and I can't say I'm basing my opinion on a published study.) More cynically: some undergrads struggle to get out of bed for their midday lectures. They would not thrive in a MOOC, where there is less immediate pressure to drive their studies. I can see it working far better in the context of a masters degree, as you allude to.

elhudy 8y ago

>What you shouldn't do is try to self-study by reading a book. My experience has been that this is exactly how college math works; you pay for self-study. The professor reads directly out of a book (in poor English), or off of pre-made slides provided with the book, for 2-4 hours per week, and then you are left to do the problems from the book on your own time. Class populations are so large that if everyone had asked clarifying questions, we wouldn't have completed the readings. If your college experience was different I'm envious of that. Edit: as a fun side-note, our calc professor was well known for taking up the entire class to draw out a single proof on the chalkboard. As the chalkboard got full, he would incidentally erase his previous writing with his giant belly as he putzed across the room.

admax88q 8y ago
There are other benefits beyond being able to ask questions. Tests and deadlines provide motivation to do the actual work. Having a curriculum means that the content is laid out in a logical order that the professor believes should be achievable. There is a stupid amount of information out there. Breaking it down into a progression that students can follow in order to learn and understand it is incredibly important. If you're motivated enough then sure maybe you can just buy and read the textbook, although sometimes professors deviate from that when it's wrong. > Class populations are so large that if everyone had asked clarifying questions, we wouldn't have completed the readings. Good thing not everybody asks, and those that do ask are generally asking questions shared by a good chunk of the class.
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  > Tests and deadlines provide motivation to do the actual work. This is so true in my experience. As a young man I could listen to the lecture and say "Yeah, yeah, I got this." and then try to work the homework problems and realize that no, I didn't really understand it. It is hard to force yourself to do the work if you don't have a negative externality for not doing it.
- elhudy 8y ago
  What you're saying is agreeable: taking a class provides a certain level of motivation that self-study doesn't provide, for most people. That doesn't conflict with the idea that typical college courses have little tangible value added. If you're ok paying a couple of grand for extra motivation, then I hope you truly have a good reason to be doing so, and that it pays off. This type of system doesn't really support people who just want to learn for the sake of it though.

metalsteady 8y ago

There's no reason to go to college for these so called lower div courses. They are often taught by TAs. The latter are not synonymous with great teaching. It's the 21st century, we have a wealth of textbooks now that are often better than all TAs and profs put together. These days one can easily put aside 1600 page doorstops (such Calc books often teach applied algorithms that were last relevant in 19th century) and opt for much more nimble, well-designed and actually relevant/rigorous books like those of Jay Cummings or Lara Alcock or Richard Hammack or the Dos Reis or Gary Chartrand or ...

stillbourne 8y ago

Don't listen to this asshat. There are 2 great resources for self education on Math. https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php/Main_Page https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php/Main_Page and http://people.math.sfu.ca/~cbm/aands/abramowitz_and_stegun.pdf http://people.math.sfu.ca/~cbm/aands/abramowitz_and_stegun.p... Have a nice day.

eldavido 8y ago
Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.
- stillbourne 8y ago
  As a high school dropout that is self educated, I don't appreciate people dogging those who take the effort to forge their own path. You can learn complex topics outside a formal education system and your comment offered no specific assistance. So in the spirit of the holiday, thanks for nothing.
  - eldavido 8y ago
    So here's the thing: apart from you and maybe a few friends, nobody really cares about your "forging your own path". It may give your life meaning, which is important. But in any sort of professional / market context, people just emphatically. Do. Not. Care. Speaking from experience, I have often taken the hard path. I've always regretted it and often, if I'm being honest, it's out of a misguided sense of stubbornness. That's why I recommend trying college, to the OP. Maybe he can learn advanced mathematics by himself, in isolation. But that isn't the maximum-likelihood path. And when you're doing something hard, I've learned it pays to do everything you can to stack the deck in your favor. I think the main thing is to realize you only live one. I have friends who are more successful than me in every way. One earns literally 10x what I do, others work at more famous companies, still others receive absurd amounts of money from their parents for sitting on their ass. You can't choose your hand in life, but you can choose how you play it. So it's really up to you, whether you want to play the game on easy mode, or hard mode. Or whether you want to feel sorry for yourself or just make something of the hand you're dealt, though it may not be "fair".

UncleEntity 8y ago

I went to college and took a sum total of two math classes but have learned enough to reason out the many papers that don't have (pseudo) code but 'complex mathematical notation' -- which seems like almost all of them. https://github.com/Jam3/math-as-code https://github.com/Jam3/math-as-code was helpful...

geitir 8y ago

This is completely wrong. I am a recent graduate who is in stem and took up to calc 3. It is true you do learn notation but only what is necessary for the concepts and math of the calculus classes. I've run into the same problem as the op and most of the notation that acts as a barrier isn't matrix operators or integrals but rather symbols used in proof or niche cases that might be prevalent in a specific field but not in general University math courses.

cuspycode 8y ago

> What you shouldn't do is try to self-study by reading a book. I say do try self-study first and see if it works. You have absolutely nothing to lose by trying. It doesn't work for everyone, but you will quickly figure out if it works for you. Some people can absorb knowledge from books much more easily than from oral instruction, and for others it's the other way around.

akhilcacharya 8y ago

>I don't know any way I'd have learned all the complex topics in math, stats, probability, etc., I did without attending a big 10 engineering school (UIUC in my case) I feel so behind because I absolutely did not.

dang 8y ago

The paradox disappears when you stop anthropomorphizing HN and remember that a community of millions of people has a lot of different subgroups.

eldavido 8y ago
That is true. But you also have to acknowledge that this community isn't in any sense, "normal" (representative, average, etc) Most days I appreciate its uniqueness, but I find myself rolling my eyes at least once/week at some of the comments here. Here are some of what I'd call the "HN tropes": "Oh that hard thing? It's not that hard. I have never worked on that problem before, but can surely replicate that entire system in a week, because everyone working on it is an idiot and doesn't know what they're doing." "That traditional human behavior (e.g. marriage, buying a house, going to college)? I can squeeze 5% more efficiency out of life by completely ignoring the reality of human behavior, because my superhuman, almost robotic levels of conscientiousness and diligence that make it a horrible idea for 99% of the population, somehow don't apply to me. I beat the averages in everything I do." (I see that a bit in this thread. See also: playing games with credit card balance transfers, renting vs. buying "because I'll save the difference", trading options and thinking you won't fall into well-known behavioral traps) "Hard problem from another discipline (finance, accounting, medical science)? I can reinvent a clever algorithm ten times smarter than that, despite my complete lack of domain knowledge. No problem." "Incumbents are stupid. Anyone can beat them if they're clever." "I don't need to read history. Humans are irrelevant, if we just apply the right combination of game theory, economics, and some clever code, we can fix any problem. Politics and governance are stupid, avoidable problems if we just used the right system." (I see this a lot in Bitcoin discussions) I see these with alarming frequency here. You can certainly say I'm painting with too broad a brush but I've been here since 2009 and it comes up over and over. More than anything, I just laugh at it these days (not get mad).
- tomhoward 8y ago
  For a site that attracts millions of visits and tens of thousands of comments a month, just once/week seems pretty good! Seriously: do you routinely see eye-rolling comments that don’t get downvoted or rebutted? I don’t. That’s what I like/appreciate about this place; yes you’ll get the tropes you mention, but you’ll invariably get an articulate response that points out the weakness or conceit.