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Stanford University Free Class: Design and Analysis of Algorithms I
- alexanderberman 15y agoWow, the amazing classes just keep on coming! Stanford is really doing a phenomenal thing by making all of these classes free to the public!
- queensnake 15y ago.. it's raining free classes this weekend! Must be a deadline Monday :)
- pbh 15y agoIs this a CVPR reference, or just an amazingly accurate comment?
- tnip 15y agoI'm pretty amped about this, to be honest. Gives me a way to take an Algorithms class a semester early, and it serves as a good kick in the rear too! (Well, hopefully not so much the latter - just excited to be able to take the class!)
- almost_usual 15y agoThis guy is a great lecturer, I'm working through his CS161 videos right now. You can get a sample of what his lectures will probably be like here http://openclassroom.stanford.edu/MainFolder/CoursePage.php?course=IntroToAlgorithms http://openclassroom.stanford.edu/MainFolder/CoursePage.php?...
- NnamdiJr 15y agoKnow anywhere I can download those vids from? Streaming is a bit slow from where I am..
- mrleinad 15y agoThey´re like pokemon. Gotta have them all!
- sjmulder 15y agoI’m seriously considering taking half a year off to work on several of these classes, supported by a part time job. There’s just so much in there that we never properly treated at uni (bachelor level).
- tutysara 15y agoexactly what I am thinking of. Should be fine with around 2 months off from work, I don't mind loss of pay for the period.
- roxtar 15y agoWhy not do a master's instead? :)
- robryan 15y agoYeah, I did 2 ai based classes, a probability class and tackled nlp for my honors thesis and still find I'm learning a fair bit from the ai class.
- pcestrada 15y agoI'm stunned... I've already signed up for ML, was thinking crypto, and now this? Some people dream of winning the lottery, I would be happy for a 6 month sabbatical from my full time job to immerse myself in these classes. I've currently taking the AI class and a enjoy it immensely. I feel the my 'bag of programming tools' has grown exponentially with all the stuff I'm learning.
- Vivtek 15y agoI'm taking ML now and it's pretty darned good.
- joeyespo 15y agoI wanted to take ML, but only really had enough time for AI. I was very happy to see that ML is having another semester. For those who can only afford to take one or two classes per semester, keep them coming!
- zura 15y agoML class is good, but I'm bit disappointed regarding programming assignments - it is just a translation of the given math formulas to the Octave/MATLAB syntax.
- signa11 15y agobut why ? if it is lack of maths, then you can work through derivations etc by following Christopher bishop's excellent 'neural network for pattern recognition'. for me though, the balance between theory and practice is just right. also, for some more fun you may want to check out Stanford's uldl page as well, which goes into unsupervised learning and deep-learning architectures.
- Vivtek 15y agoWhile that's not an inaccurate representation, I think "just" translating the math to Octave/MATLAB's pretty powerful vector algebra language isn't as trivial as you seem to find it. I've had some seriously epiphanic moments. For me, at least, this class is striking a pretty good balance. Although I've been struck by the fact that they expect most people to do loop iteration until forced into vectorized concepts - I've been forcing myself to do it all as linear algebra from the start, as that's what I see as the point of the class.
- johnfn 15y agoI'm a Stanford student, and I can tell you that Roughgarden is one of the best lecturers at Stanford. If you're thinking about taking a class, I would highly recommend this one. Plus, the material is awesome.
- spicyj 15y agoWhich Stanford course does this correspond to?
- plinkplonk 15y agolooks like CS 161 https://courseware.stanford.edu/pg/courses/214383/cs-161-fall-2011 https://courseware.stanford.edu/pg/courses/214383/cs-161-fal... Can anyone (at Stanford or otherwise) tell me if there is a follow up course? The (online) course title says "Design and Analysis of Algorithms I". Is there a Design and Analysis of Algorithms II (or III or IV)?
- davidtgoldblatt 15y agoThere's the following algorithms class CS 261 (upper-level undergraduate/masters) and CS 361b (mostly aimed at phd students, though undergraduates take it). 161 covers all the material you would expect to see in an undergrad algorithms class. I'd be surprised if 261 or 361b are put online, since they're not usually recorded and (at least when I took them) have between 10 and 20 students.
- plinkplonk 15y ago"I'd be surprised if 261 or 361b are put online, since they're not usually recorded and (at least when I took them) have between 10 and 20 students." Isn't that the exact reason they should be put online though? If there are say 5,000 students worldwide (vs 150,000 for the AI course) that is still a massive multiple. I sincerely hope Stanford doesn't stop at the "Introduction to X" courses. The upcoming "Probablistic Graphics Models" class seems reasonably advanced, and is hopefully a harbinger of things to come.
- corey 15y agoI'm currently loving Jennifer Widom's DB class, and I'm excited about this and ML next quarter. I really hope this phenomenon spreads outside of their CS department; I'd love it if there were some pure math classes(like real analysis and abstract algebra) in this format.
- stordoff 15y agoI've been doing ML class this quarter, and it has been very good. Andrew Ng is a great teacher, and the programming exercises are a great addition.
- plinkplonk 15y agoThe ideal situation is that other Universities get into the game, so we can pick and choose courses from specific professors - one course from MIT and another from Stanford and so on. Another thing I'd like to see is this idea expanding beyond CS to, say, Math and Physics. Within CS it would be great to see courses on Compilers, Operating Systems and so on. Yes I am greedy :p (and the courses are addictive!)
- dstein64 15y agoIf you are looking for math video lectures, UCCS posts videos for a bunch of their courses. However, these do not have the features that are on the Stanford sites (e.g., interactive questions). http://www.uccs.edu/~math/vidarchive.html http://www.uccs.edu/~math/vidarchive.html
- bajsejohannes 15y agoWhy stop there? I hope we'll get an online version of every university course out there!
- porfirio 15y agoWhy should they? I think these courses are great, but how is Stanford benefiting from them? If Stanford has to expend all this effort without realizing a benefit of some sort, why should they continue? I'm worried they'll stop, so it'd be reassuring to know they benefit somehow. Self interest aside, this is a winner take all market. The best producers aren't limited to selling their wares to a finite number of customers, as they are with brick and mortar universities. It's like a musician performing live music in local bars, versus selling his album on iTunes - a man can only be in one place at one time, so the demand of local bars can afford several bands play and fame. But for privately listening to music, recordable media means there is no limit to how many fans a superstar can accomodate, lowering the demand for all the runner-ups, to the point where no one but the top stars can stay in business. But of course, there's still room for several players across subjects, rather than within subjects. Lady Gaga does not threaten Bob Dylan much. If Stanford successfully finds a way to monetize this model, they will have a large competitive advantage. They will be able to lure the best professors in the world with handsome sums, because they are best placed to sell their lectures to hundreds of thousands. It would take a significant outlay of capital for anyone else to get a start.
- roxtar 15y agoI am guessing there are three more classes to come. That way the rows showing the classes, at the bottom of each class page, will be nice and symmetrical.
- motxilo 15y agoTo make everything nice and symmetrical, think of a "square" of classes.
- joeyespo 15y agoIs there a central place to get a list of all the classes? (Aside from the bottom of these individual pages)
- rodh257 15y agoThis may have been answered in one of the many other threads on these, but are they going to run these regularly? There's so many I want to do but I don't have time to do them all at once. Have they said that they will run them later next year?
- mousa 15y agoI don't believe the ai class profs have mentioned it yet. The db professor sounds like she is going to do it again next year same time, but hasn't said so definitively. ML class is happening next semester again.
- alanav 15y agoLike he said: "the key class to ace the technical interviews." So true.
- innocentques 15y agoI am amazed that Stanford is taking this idea and running with it. Khan Academy established the need and feasibility of the parallel education system. It is much better than the other types of open course ware. I am beginning to think there are going to be a lot more. And I am desperately wishing for some electrical engineering classes.
- woodson 15y agoEE classes of the signal processing variety?
- innocentques 15y agoYeah, would mark out if that happened.
- luke1294 15y agoI don't think I've ever heard of anyone marking out for signal processing, but I'm liking it. I think we need to combine all of the terminology- 'Fourier was such a spotmonkey' or something.
- beagledude 15y agoHonestly, I'm more excited about these classes from Stanford than Christmas. This is the one I've been waiting for, thanks Santa!
- omlette 15y agoi'm lowering my courseload next semester just to take a few of these.
- porfirio 15y agoAre these classes sustainable? Once a class has been run, how much labor is required of Stanford staffers? My concern is that Stanford will hold these classes, realize no payoffs besides goodwill, and then quit. It may sound strange, but it'd be comforting to know Stanford is materially benefiting from the classes. If they aren't, I worry they'll stop. I think I won't have time for any classes this semester, as I'm taking some for credit classes elsewhere. To remedy that, I wonder if Stanford could offer tutoring services for pay, sort of like giving away software and then charging for support. This wouldn't be too different from the status quo where TAs teach undergrads who in turn subsidize graduate instruction. This might create an incentive for Stanford to make classes unnecessarily abstruse (by analogy, making software impossible to use without technical support), but if professors weren't pressured to hit revenue targets, I don't think it would be an issue. The next step to truly revolutionize education is to grant credits and eventually complete degrees, while lining up employers who would accept these degrees and hire their holders. Currently, online undergraduate education isn't taken seriously, especially by prestige employers. But this in itself is pretty damn cool, and judging by the reception, superior to all the other means out there for educating oneself.
- zura 15y agoGreat! Now I'm waiting for the Compilers class.
- gnonsense 15y agoWhat are the expectations for someone who signs up for a course? Are there ramifications if one does not complete the material? I want to sign up for this, but I have three other college classes to take at the same time (with extracurriculars), and I'm not positive I could keep up for the entire semester.
- ChrisCooper 15y agoIt's completely free to take, and no one will hassle you if you don't do anything at all. In addition, at least for the ones that happened this fall, if you are taking the advanced stream, you can drop down to the beginner one at any time.