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I took Geoff Hinton's Coursera course on neural nets when it was first offered and it was incredible. No exaggeration to say it changed the course of my career.

I took Geoff Hinton's Coursera course on neural nets when it was first offered and it was incredible. No exaggeration to say it changed the course of my career. That's all to Geoff's credit of course, not Coursera per se. But the idea that you can get instruction from the world's foremost expert in a topic rather than whoever your university happened to hire, or even if you're not in university at all, is pretty disruptive.

teruakohatu 6y ago
> rather than whoever your university happened to hire Two years ago Geoff Hinton requested his course be removed because it was out of date. At a university, at least at a post-graduate level, you are probably going to be taught by a deep learning researcher passionate about the subject, with the added advantage of support if you struggle with some concepts.
- modeless 6y ago
  Yeah, it's definitely out of date now. That's Coursera's responsibility to replace it with something more recent.
  - anonymousDan 6y ago
    What are the main aspects that are out of date? Can you point to a more up to date course?
- obsequiosity 6y ago
  True, but while there's a qualitative difference between traditional university provided education and on-demand e-learning, there's also a striking monetary and commitment difference.
abraxas 6y ago
I also took that course. It might be a bit due to my less than stellar math background but mostly due to the way Geoff explains stuff that I had a really hard time keeping up. I ended up giving up and not bothering with deep learning and neural nets until the amazing, legendary, awesome CS231n was made available taught by Andrej Karpathy. I don't know what it is about the way Andrej teaches but it's so good that I literally binge watched all of CS231n over a weekend and then went back to the start and watched again while working through the exercises. Just goes to show that not every teaching style will fit every student and that's why online learning has a big future - teaching/learning style compatibility is a hugely under-appreciated issue. I admire Geoff Hinton. I'm also proud of his accomplishments as a fellow Canadian. But I'm not in sync with the way he explains stuff though I'll always watch every lecture and presentation he puts out on video.
- modeless 6y ago
  It was definitely not a casual course. I went in hoping for a graduate level course and that's what it was. I had to spend a lot of time on it. I didn't find the math too advanced but understanding the lectures and doing the exercises took a while. Karpathy's CS231n was indeed another great course. We're really spoiled for choice these days.
  - nx7487 6y ago
    Risk vs reward, you probably _can't_ get a "career changing" course without making it too difficult for some people.
- lordnacho 6y ago
  The real benefit of this online course thing is that you can find multiple explanations of anything, instead of being stuck with whoever is teaching at your institution.
- huseyinkeles 6y ago
  Karpathy really knows how to teach and keep you engaged. Random anecdote; I learned how to solve Rubik’s cube and get to sub 30 seconds by watching his YouTube channel ~10 years ago (He was a PhD student at Stanford at the time). I was always amazed by his teaching skills even back then. https://youtube.com/user/badmephisto/videos https://youtube.com/user/badmephisto/videos

teruakohatu 6y ago

> rather than whoever your university happened to hire Two years ago Geoff Hinton requested his course be removed because it was out of date. At a university, at least at a post-graduate level, you are probably going to be taught by a deep learning researcher passionate about the subject, with the added advantage of support if you struggle with some concepts.

modeless 6y ago
Yeah, it's definitely out of date now. That's Coursera's responsibility to replace it with something more recent.
- anonymousDan 6y ago
  What are the main aspects that are out of date? Can you point to a more up to date course?
obsequiosity 6y ago
True, but while there's a qualitative difference between traditional university provided education and on-demand e-learning, there's also a striking monetary and commitment difference.

abraxas 6y ago

I also took that course. It might be a bit due to my less than stellar math background but mostly due to the way Geoff explains stuff that I had a really hard time keeping up. I ended up giving up and not bothering with deep learning and neural nets until the amazing, legendary, awesome CS231n was made available taught by Andrej Karpathy. I don't know what it is about the way Andrej teaches but it's so good that I literally binge watched all of CS231n over a weekend and then went back to the start and watched again while working through the exercises. Just goes to show that not every teaching style will fit every student and that's why online learning has a big future - teaching/learning style compatibility is a hugely under-appreciated issue. I admire Geoff Hinton. I'm also proud of his accomplishments as a fellow Canadian. But I'm not in sync with the way he explains stuff though I'll always watch every lecture and presentation he puts out on video.

modeless 6y ago
It was definitely not a casual course. I went in hoping for a graduate level course and that's what it was. I had to spend a lot of time on it. I didn't find the math too advanced but understanding the lectures and doing the exercises took a while. Karpathy's CS231n was indeed another great course. We're really spoiled for choice these days.
- nx7487 6y ago
  Risk vs reward, you probably _can't_ get a "career changing" course without making it too difficult for some people.
lordnacho 6y ago
The real benefit of this online course thing is that you can find multiple explanations of anything, instead of being stuck with whoever is teaching at your institution.
huseyinkeles 6y ago
Karpathy really knows how to teach and keep you engaged. Random anecdote; I learned how to solve Rubik’s cube and get to sub 30 seconds by watching his YouTube channel ~10 years ago (He was a PhD student at Stanford at the time). I was always amazed by his teaching skills even back then. https://youtube.com/user/badmephisto/videos https://youtube.com/user/badmephisto/videos