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Some people actually believe it isn't possible to learn sufficiently complex things without instruction. I suspect this is because they themselves are unable,
by jcnnghm 16y ago
Some people actually believe it isn't possible to learn sufficiently complex things without instruction. I suspect this is because they themselves are unable, unwilling, or have not tried to learn without instruction. I had a professor that insisted I was cheating because I was able to get A's on projects and tests in a C course, but did not attend any classes or discussions. He insisted that it was absolutely impossible to learn C without taking a course and attending the lectures.
- tjr 16y agoI took a data structures class in which one of the students, due to work schedule or something, was unable to come to the lectures. She (the only woman in the class, by the way) got a better grade than the rest of us who sat through the lectures.
- jk4930 16y agoI had a similar case in a programming class, too. We worked in teams of two, I wrote the programs for the weekly tests (they were required to write the exam), she had no idea about data types, she couldn't compile, she had no practical understanding of programming. When we wrote the exam, she passed well, I failed. :)
- nwmcsween 16y agoI believe you can learn whatever you wish, but depending on your field of study it's pretty hard procuring multimillion dollar machines used in some (chemistry, nuclear sciences, etc) sciences.
- rch 16y agoUm.... http://aws.amazon.com/ http://aws.amazon.com/
- jat850 16y agoAWS kicks ass, but it doesn't (yet) offer scanning-tunneling electron microscopes or particle accelerators to the best of my knowledge, which might be what grandparent was referring to?
- rch 16y agoI thought the same thing actually. Then I thought about the wealth of open scientific databases, some of which are already loaded into S3 (ftp://ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/blast/db/nr*), and figured that the criteria for learning, in the context of programming, was satisfied.
- invalidOrTaken 16y agoAWS April Fools 2012, I just know it.
- TillE 16y agoIf Congress slashes Dept. of Energy funding (which seems likely), RHIC is going offline. Amazon could buy a particle accelerator.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- grinich 16y agobribe grad students at MIT/Stanford/Caltech with some pizza there's always a way
- kin 16y agoAgreed. I've learned that the only times I can't learn on my own is when the text itself is incompetent at teaching. Sometimes though there are some amazing lecturers that deserve your full attention.
- HeyLaughingBoy 16y agoOne of the most important things that sadly isn't taught at many colleges/universities, is that often the required textbook sucks. I had a hell of a time learning digital controls theory (Z transforms, etc) from whatever book we were assigned. On a hunch I started looking through the library and found a few other books that explained the concepts in a much more transparent fashion.
- zenocon 16y agoI have always approached learning in exactly the same fashion. Seek out multiple sources of information on the same topic, and browse them all. You'll quickly find the source (or sources) that explain it best to you. It's a total waste of time to bang your head against the wall and blame a poorly written text.
- jasongullickson 16y agoI'd say the only exception to this is when it is illegal (or possibly immoral) to carryout the lessons outside of a sanctioned learning environment. Dissecting cadavers comes to mind, or operating a small fission reactor, etc. Of course there are ways to learn about these things without actually doing them, but there are probably some edge cases where experience is important and difficult to obtain outside of the university.
- nostrademons 16y agoThere're plenty of other edge cases where the knowledge is proprietary and only available outside of the academic system, though. You're not going to learn how Google Search works without working at Google. You're not going to learn how MS Windows works without working at Microsoft. A bunch of applied chemistry or applied biology is only available in industry.
- kaens 16y agoIt being illegal or immoral doesn't make it impossible. It's a minor semantic quibble, but a bit of an important one. For it to be impossible, you'd have to have some sort of situation where the people or materials needed to gain or apply the requisite knowledge for the whatever-you're-learning were only available through some sanctioned environment, regardless of legality or morality. I'm sure things like this exist, but they're few and far between (and we probably don't have any clue about them).
- jasongullickson 16y agoAbsolutely, I wouldn't say anything was impossible.
- guelo 16y agoI self-taught myself trig and calculus in high school. I wasn't told about AP classes until it was too late to sign up and then I was told it was a waste of time to take the test without the class. I signed up for the AP test anyway, spent a semester self teaching and got a perfect 5 on the test. It took some dedication but really it wasn't that hard to learn. Later I found out that none of the students in the class got a 5, mostly 3s and 4s.
- patricklynch 16y agoI got a 5 as well, but in my case it was less a function of calculus mastery and more a function of knowing how to program everything they asked for into a TI-89. (I've since gone through a few calculus textbooks to actually learn everything that gizmo let me fake an understanding of.)
- MaysonL 16y agoI wonder how they think these subjects were developed in the first place, other than by self-teaching?