> First off, I get that Norvig is a celebrity. Celebrity has little to do with teaching ability. It's not like he's popular for being snooki's best friend or s

> First off, I get that Norvig is a celebrity. Celebrity has little to do with teaching ability. It's not like he's popular for being snooki's best friend or something .. I feel Peter Norvig is a celebrity for the right reasons here.. there are two types of teachers - those who get you to see the world in interesting ways, and those who illuminate targets that one wouldn't hit normally on one's own. I'm guessing Norvig's course might be more of the latter type.. > .. but one of the best things about going to college was getting to know smart and interesting people personally, I feel 'getting to know' is not enough. As math ematicians/scientists or techies or programmers, our peer group /culture is our identity, and pretty much the main reason we wake up in the morning and check email for patch updates or stay up till 5 running code and what not. yep, online courses don't give that. And I too badly feel the need for it tl;dr first point - disagree, second point - agree edit:formatting