It is valuable to get to know different approaches for the same algorithm from different sources. In general if you could learn about the same topic from 5 diff

It is valuable to get to know different approaches for the same algorithm from different sources. In general if you could learn about the same topic from 5 different sources it would be awesome. That said, how much time do you want to spend on it? If you don't have all life to do it, pick 2 and stick to it. Just random ... MIT and Stanford, or Princeton and CMU, in the end there should be no fundamental difference. Stuff that you listed in any way will get you far enough, two approaches will be great. In the end if you want to be realistic about your time, role the dice for one of those... I did not do any of those, I did small technical university in eastern Europe. I have well paying job in western Europe and have seen people who finished better universities that know less than me. You know that 80% of the effects come from 20% of causes? Don't try to over optimize... No one will give a damn if you are self learning and you did MIT course over the internet. You are not getting MIT degree anyway. That said, I skimmed through some of MIT and Princeton lectures as well, and you know what? Those were not magically better than the ones from my small uni in eastern Europe... But you know if you have MIT degree it is still worth more just like Adidas shoes you walk with them the same as other sneakers...