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Who on HN is taking one or more of these courses? I signed on for Daphne Koller's Probabilistic Graphical Models and Geoff Hinton's Neural Networks courses. P

Who on HN is taking one or more of these courses? I signed on for Daphne Koller's Probabilistic Graphical Models and Geoff Hinton's Neural Networks courses. PGM is supposed to be really tough. I am planning to take a couple of months off from work. This new world, where you can learn for free from the experts, is a dream come true. I am thinking of blogging my progress (or lack of it, as the case maybe!)

muellerwolfram 14y ago
I signed up for 'Software Engineering for SaaS' and going to take more programming courses when i have more time... its really amazing, the courses are so much butter than at my university...
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  "the courses are so much butter than at my university" That's the real challenge to all the middle-of-the-road schools out there. Now they can be directly compared to the best.
zumda 14y ago
I took the Machine Learning course by Andrew Ng some time ago. And it was a really great experience. The lessons are interesting, and I really like their concept of quizzes in the middle of the lessons. They just show the question on the video, he explains it, and they stop the video and you can choose which one is right, or type in the number. The homework is also well done and enhances the knowledge from the course. I had a lot of fun doing the lectures each and every week. You probably want to put aside a set day and time when you will do it, though, or else it is easy to do other things and "do the lectures later". If they continue like this, there is soon no reason to go to a university anymore. :) (which is a catch-22 since the lecturers are payed by universities...)
- GlenAnderson 14y ago
  I've been watching the lectures for the same course. Having them split into short self-contained videos (~5-15mins) has made it very easy to fit in around university and a toddler. For example, whenever I do the washing up I put my tablet on the windowsill and watch a video. I've also been watching them instead of browsing the web as a more structured break when studying. The fixed length of a video makes it much easier to be disciplined with the length of my breaks. The subject matter is different enough and presented in such a digestible way that it really is a good break.
- buddhika 14y ago
  Prof. Ng's ML course was a real eye opener. It wasn't hard but was very practical. Then when you need more theoretical background you can watch recordings of his stanford ML class.
- tomp 14y ago
  I didn't like the homeworks on the ML course. The programming exercises were child's play for someone who already knows how to program, you just had to translate math equations to code. I hardly learned anything by doing them.
  - denzil_correa 14y ago
    You were taking the wrong course, I would argue. You should do the one on AcademicEarth (CS 229). The online course was CS229A Applications of ML.
  - nessus42 14y ago
    You thought that figuring out how to vectorize the solutions was "child's play"? Sure, coming up with any-ol' working solution was child's play, but figuring how how to get the solutions to be one or two lines of code containing only matrix operations wasn't child's play. It wasn't rocket science either, but I had to put on my thinking cap a bit.
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      One thing I've noticed in most of the online classes is a tendency among a vocal subgroup to talk about how easy the material is, even when it's not. It's just alpha nerding, same as any other venue. And if it's really that easy, then as you say, why not impress us with how you've gone beyond it. Anyone who can type can say it's easy. Show us something.
      - tomp 14y ago
        Why can't we have a real discussion here on HN, without our egos being hurt and without throwing around such subtle insults as "alpha nerding"?!? I was just being honest. The exercises were easy for me. I'm sure they were not for many people. I don't care, because I don't compare myself to others in this way. In comparison to other people around me, I know I'm very smart/capable for some things, and suck at others. I'm not saying this to feel better or so that you would respect me more. I'm saying this because it's fact. The way I see it (without having to compare myself to other people), I'm capable enough to reach many goals in my life, but I would like to improve myself in many areas still. But anyhow, you've completely missed my point.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
seiji 14y ago
can learn for free from the experts, is a dream come true. I'm not sure that's what they do though. Learning "from the experts" means they are there to help you, understand where you're coming from, and correct you along the way. Just watching a video of someone with recorded slides is something we could have done 20 years ago. I was excited about the PGM class, but my interest dropped after the first few videos (100% comic sans slides, poor video quality, poor audio quality). Just because you are an expert in some field has zero bearing on your ability to teach or convey information. I'm not sure a "let's imitate college lecture formats" site founded by smart people understands that. They fall into the trap of "smart people can do EVERYTHING!" There are a lot of very smart people who have negative presentation skills. There are a lot of very smart people who have excellent presentation skills too. Solution: have the smart people write the script, but have people excited about presenting show it to the world.
- GlenAnderson 14y ago
  udacity has gone too far the other way for me. It seems very slick but I switched off after a couple of minutes because I felt like I was watching a kids tv show.
  - seiji 14y ago
    Great to know. I've been working on a third option that's less lecturey and less condecending. People can complain about it profusely next month when it launches.
  - sid6376 14y ago
    I am taking the udacity statistics 101 course and while I agree with the statement you make, if you visit the forums there are plenty of people having trouble with the current material itself. The last assignment had a fill in the blanks proof of the maximum likelihood estimator. Some people were complaining on the forum that it did not belong to a 101 course. Either ways I am glad that the course is being offered. It may not be the best introduction to statistics I get but it at least pushes me into starting to read about statistics.
pirateking 14y ago
I am taking the Introduction to Cryptography course at a leisurely pace right now. Experience has been awesome so far, and am definitely looking forward to taking more courses on the site. After aimlessly reading HN and blogs for so long, having a solid, structured course feels so... good. I need to mentally prepare myself for this very real thing called "learning" once again!
FrojoS 14y ago
Great! I've signed up for "Computing for Data Analysis". Personally, the old saying Not only is a book the better teacher, it also has more character. holds mostly true for me. Most classes, that I remember to be superior to the experience of a good book, were either because there simply wasn't a good book, or the teacher was extremely charismatic, or both [1]. However, I really like this movement, see its appeal and learnt a thing or two from these new [2][4], and old [3], online courses. As others have pointed out here, watching a short video has very little transaction cost. That is true, however, for me the transaction cost with a book is often lower. With a book I can easily navigate to the interesting part. With the online videos, I never know if I can skip over the intro stuff. For instance, in Ng's ML class [4] a lot of the material, especially the majority in the first six chapters was familiar to me. However, had I not watched the first chapter I still wouldn't know the definition of a Hypothesis in Machine Learning. This problem exists with books, too. But I think skimming is easier with books. [1] Underactuted Robotics http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-832-underactuated-robotics-spring-2009/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput... [2] http://youtu.be/0yD3uBshJB0 http://youtu.be/0yD3uBshJB0 [3] http://www.udacity.com/view#Course/cs373/CourseRev/apr2012 http://www.udacity.com/view#Course/cs373/CourseRev/apr2012 [4] https://class.coursera.org/ml/lecture/preview#close https://class.coursera.org/ml/lecture/preview#close
- GlenAnderson 14y ago
  And if you encounter a term that you missed by skipping the introduction it's easier, with a book, to quickly find where it's defined courtesy of the index.
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    Or courtesy of being able to quickly scan and skim the pages. And that's the same reason why videoutorials are inferior to traditional, text-and-screeshots-based tutorials. A point worth keeping in mind IMO.
    - henrik_w 14y ago
kolinko 14y ago
I'm doing Farmacology right now.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
petercooper 14y ago
This new world, where you can learn for free from the experts, is a dream come true. What's the business model though? Because that can only go so long without the teachers/experts earning money.. and if they earn money, someone else must be also earning the money to pay them.
- tomrod 14y ago
  I assume it was strictly donation at this point. If I were to design something like this (actually not that far off from a nonprofit I had in mind years ago), I would offer a freemium model: basic classes for free, more advanced classes for a fee.
- qntmfred 14y ago
  recruiting fees from employers for the best students
- _delirium 14y ago
  So far it seems to be basically a "subsidized by universities" model. The people giving these lectures are earning traditional salaries in traditional professorships, paid for by a mixture of tuition, research grants, and (for state schools) tax money. Of course, that doesn't explain whether it'll be viable long-term for the universities to keep subsidizing it. My guess is they're hoping to either: 1) use it as a loss-leader that pulls in more traditional, tuition-paying students; and/or 2) use it as a loss-leader that pulls in some kind of other revenue source, e.g. impressing people at companies who are in charge of grant programs; and/or 3) charge at some point.
doe88 14y ago
I'm taking the cryptography course by Pr. Dan Boneh, it is awesome, it is really engaging, deep enough and all the material is very well done. Moreover I just discovered the second part of this course has been announced and is scheduled for early 2013, so it's fabulous. All I can say is that for this course I would even be willing to invest myself even more (both in time and money) at the level of requirement of a graduate course. I really would be interested in paying the standart fee and follow the same course than the stanford students follow and have a kind of official credit in reward.
- jpdus 14y ago
  Yep, i liked the crypto course a lot too (took part in the first iteration in March). The problem is that there is basically no "service" at all. The first iteration was delayed by several weeks (without any prior notice or status update) and there were several problems with the certificates (Ive gotten less programming credits than I should have and others had similar problems) but got no chance to get this corrected. I guess thats the problem with free courses (and thats the reason I would like to pay some fee for it): You can just record the lessons once and afterwards repeat the course how often you want with very little updates - and very little help/service for students.
baby 14y ago
I'm taking the cryptologie one, very interesting but also a bit hard to follow. I'm on week 4 whereas week 6 is already on and feel like I won't have time to finish it by the time the exam happens :( I've tried the sociology one but really didn't dig the first texts we had to read. I'm waiting for gamification, python, object in french, crypto II, greek mythology...
Dn_Ab 14y ago
Many of the computing and math courses are enough in my comfort zone that I can readily pick them up on my own. That, coupled with my belief in the future of quantative biology has made me sign up and take a number of chemistry, anatomy, medicine, drug, neuro and genetics courses. About 13 in all but only 2, no more than 3 per block of time which is good. The only outliers are the quantum computing and finance ones. I've programm(ed|ing) a spaced repitition native app that uses ideas from online sequential learning to challenge me (hah online learning for online learning). I can look at performance graphs per topic area over time. For now it just scores roughly based on text similarity but I've built a parser I can use for the more mathematical ones. By the end of a couple of courses it should be a very interesting project. It currently additionally allows for searching and note taking but I noticed when I go over my notes I tend to go back and forth on certain concepts so I will implement a history concept and automatic topic map building (using both cookie trails and measures of similarity). An unintentional side effect due to Markdown support and html generation is that it generates something like a wiki but far easier.
- pitt1980 14y ago
  If someone came up with a good spaced repition app for retaining the learning from all these online classes, I'd be happy to pay $20 - 30 for something like that (market survey of 1)
  - Dn_Ab 14y ago
    It's very important to me that I retain the information so I'm testing this on myself. My motivation is not monetary though. My approach is inspired by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Craig_(Jeopardy!_contestant)#Preparation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Craig_(Jeopardy!_contesta...
    - pitt1980 14y ago
      yeah, I read about that in http://www.amazon.com/Final-Jeopardy-Machine-Quest-Everything/dp/0547483163/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342527569&sr=8-1&keywords=Final+Jeopardy%3A+Man+Vs.+Machine+and+the+Quest+to+Know+Everything http://www.amazon.com/Final-Jeopardy-Machine-Quest-Everythin... I'm not enough of a hacker yet to actually do that myself
tokenadult 14y ago
Who on HN is taking one or more of these courses? I'm trying to get used to the model by taking courses that will mostly be for review (but I expect that they will get into some material that is new for me, or forgotten through lack of practice for me) such as Statistics One by Princeton University starting 3 September 2012, taught by Andrew Conway Calculus: Single Variable by University of Pennsylvania 27 August 2012, taught by Robert Ghrist Introduction to Logic by Stanford University 24 September 2012, taught by Michael Genesereth I'm currently in the Udacity introductory courses on statistics and physics, again for personal review and also to check them out for my children. I'm intensely curious about how this course delivery model will develop, so I'm jumping in to use the Massive Open Online Courses to study subjects I like to self-study anyhow.
- stordoff 14y ago
  The Intro to Logic course is pretty good IMO. The lectures are pretty dry (not much that you can do about that really), but the content is solid.
jonstjohn 14y ago
I took machine learning the first time it was offered, and took about half of the PGM class before personal commitments won out temporarily (it was quite demanding, 10-15 hours per week). I re-signed up for PGM so I can give it another go this fall. Quality was really fantastic. Some people complained that ML was not as hard as the Stanford class, but I probably wasn't expecting quite that level in a free, online class, so expectations on my end were more reasonable.
fuzzythinker 14y ago
Didn't know Hinton is doing a NN course. Hope he gets into the deep net stuff. For those interested too, link is: https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets
dysoco 14y ago
I signed up in Algorithms I and Functional Programming in Scala. I'm also taking Algorithms in Udacity, but I don't really like Udacity too much.
Rickasaurus 14y ago
I took ML Class (quite easy) last fall, PGM Class (a ton of work, but well worth it) in the spring and have just started the Quantum Computing class. Be careful, they're addictive!

muellerwolfram 14y ago

I signed up for 'Software Engineering for SaaS' and going to take more programming courses when i have more time... its really amazing, the courses are so much butter than at my university...

waterlesscloud 14y ago
"the courses are so much butter than at my university" That's the real challenge to all the middle-of-the-road schools out there. Now they can be directly compared to the best.

zumda 14y ago

I took the Machine Learning course by Andrew Ng some time ago. And it was a really great experience. The lessons are interesting, and I really like their concept of quizzes in the middle of the lessons. They just show the question on the video, he explains it, and they stop the video and you can choose which one is right, or type in the number. The homework is also well done and enhances the knowledge from the course. I had a lot of fun doing the lectures each and every week. You probably want to put aside a set day and time when you will do it, though, or else it is easy to do other things and "do the lectures later". If they continue like this, there is soon no reason to go to a university anymore. :) (which is a catch-22 since the lecturers are payed by universities...)

GlenAnderson 14y ago
I've been watching the lectures for the same course. Having them split into short self-contained videos (~5-15mins) has made it very easy to fit in around university and a toddler. For example, whenever I do the washing up I put my tablet on the windowsill and watch a video. I've also been watching them instead of browsing the web as a more structured break when studying. The fixed length of a video makes it much easier to be disciplined with the length of my breaks. The subject matter is different enough and presented in such a digestible way that it really is a good break.
buddhika 14y ago
Prof. Ng's ML course was a real eye opener. It wasn't hard but was very practical. Then when you need more theoretical background you can watch recordings of his stanford ML class.
tomp 14y ago
I didn't like the homeworks on the ML course. The programming exercises were child's play for someone who already knows how to program, you just had to translate math equations to code. I hardly learned anything by doing them.
- denzil_correa 14y ago
  You were taking the wrong course, I would argue. You should do the one on AcademicEarth (CS 229). The online course was CS229A Applications of ML.
- nessus42 14y ago
  You thought that figuring out how to vectorize the solutions was "child's play"? Sure, coming up with any-ol' working solution was child's play, but figuring how how to get the solutions to be one or two lines of code containing only matrix operations wasn't child's play. It wasn't rocket science either, but I had to put on my thinking cap a bit.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    One thing I've noticed in most of the online classes is a tendency among a vocal subgroup to talk about how easy the material is, even when it's not. It's just alpha nerding, same as any other venue. And if it's really that easy, then as you say, why not impress us with how you've gone beyond it. Anyone who can type can say it's easy. Show us something.
    - tomp 14y ago
      Why can't we have a real discussion here on HN, without our egos being hurt and without throwing around such subtle insults as "alpha nerding"?!? I was just being honest. The exercises were easy for me. I'm sure they were not for many people. I don't care, because I don't compare myself to others in this way. In comparison to other people around me, I know I'm very smart/capable for some things, and suck at others. I'm not saying this to feel better or so that you would respect me more. I'm saying this because it's fact. The way I see it (without having to compare myself to other people), I'm capable enough to reach many goals in my life, but I would like to improve myself in many areas still. But anyhow, you've completely missed my point.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

seiji 14y ago

can learn for free from the experts, is a dream come true. I'm not sure that's what they do though. Learning "from the experts" means they are there to help you, understand where you're coming from, and correct you along the way. Just watching a video of someone with recorded slides is something we could have done 20 years ago. I was excited about the PGM class, but my interest dropped after the first few videos (100% comic sans slides, poor video quality, poor audio quality). Just because you are an expert in some field has zero bearing on your ability to teach or convey information. I'm not sure a "let's imitate college lecture formats" site founded by smart people understands that. They fall into the trap of "smart people can do EVERYTHING!" There are a lot of very smart people who have negative presentation skills. There are a lot of very smart people who have excellent presentation skills too. Solution: have the smart people write the script, but have people excited about presenting show it to the world.

GlenAnderson 14y ago
udacity has gone too far the other way for me. It seems very slick but I switched off after a couple of minutes because I felt like I was watching a kids tv show.
- seiji 14y ago
  Great to know. I've been working on a third option that's less lecturey and less condecending. People can complain about it profusely next month when it launches.
- sid6376 14y ago
  I am taking the udacity statistics 101 course and while I agree with the statement you make, if you visit the forums there are plenty of people having trouble with the current material itself. The last assignment had a fill in the blanks proof of the maximum likelihood estimator. Some people were complaining on the forum that it did not belong to a 101 course. Either ways I am glad that the course is being offered. It may not be the best introduction to statistics I get but it at least pushes me into starting to read about statistics.

pirateking 14y ago

I am taking the Introduction to Cryptography course at a leisurely pace right now. Experience has been awesome so far, and am definitely looking forward to taking more courses on the site. After aimlessly reading HN and blogs for so long, having a solid, structured course feels so... good. I need to mentally prepare myself for this very real thing called "learning" once again!

FrojoS 14y ago

Great! I've signed up for "Computing for Data Analysis". Personally, the old saying Not only is a book the better teacher, it also has more character. holds mostly true for me. Most classes, that I remember to be superior to the experience of a good book, were either because there simply wasn't a good book, or the teacher was extremely charismatic, or both [1]. However, I really like this movement, see its appeal and learnt a thing or two from these new [2][4], and old [3], online courses. As others have pointed out here, watching a short video has very little transaction cost. That is true, however, for me the transaction cost with a book is often lower. With a book I can easily navigate to the interesting part. With the online videos, I never know if I can skip over the intro stuff. For instance, in Ng's ML class [4] a lot of the material, especially the majority in the first six chapters was familiar to me. However, had I not watched the first chapter I still wouldn't know the definition of a Hypothesis in Machine Learning. This problem exists with books, too. But I think skimming is easier with books. [1] Underactuted Robotics http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-832-underactuated-robotics-spring-2009/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput... [2] http://youtu.be/0yD3uBshJB0 http://youtu.be/0yD3uBshJB0 [3] http://www.udacity.com/view#Course/cs373/CourseRev/apr2012 http://www.udacity.com/view#Course/cs373/CourseRev/apr2012 [4] https://class.coursera.org/ml/lecture/preview#close https://class.coursera.org/ml/lecture/preview#close

GlenAnderson 14y ago
And if you encounter a term that you missed by skipping the introduction it's easier, with a book, to quickly find where it's defined courtesy of the index.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  Or courtesy of being able to quickly scan and skim the pages. And that's the same reason why videoutorials are inferior to traditional, text-and-screeshots-based tutorials. A point worth keeping in mind IMO.
  - henrik_w 14y ago

kolinko 14y ago

I'm doing Farmacology right now.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

petercooper 14y ago

This new world, where you can learn for free from the experts, is a dream come true. What's the business model though? Because that can only go so long without the teachers/experts earning money.. and if they earn money, someone else must be also earning the money to pay them.

tomrod 14y ago
I assume it was strictly donation at this point. If I were to design something like this (actually not that far off from a nonprofit I had in mind years ago), I would offer a freemium model: basic classes for free, more advanced classes for a fee.
qntmfred 14y ago
recruiting fees from employers for the best students
_delirium 14y ago
So far it seems to be basically a "subsidized by universities" model. The people giving these lectures are earning traditional salaries in traditional professorships, paid for by a mixture of tuition, research grants, and (for state schools) tax money. Of course, that doesn't explain whether it'll be viable long-term for the universities to keep subsidizing it. My guess is they're hoping to either: 1) use it as a loss-leader that pulls in more traditional, tuition-paying students; and/or 2) use it as a loss-leader that pulls in some kind of other revenue source, e.g. impressing people at companies who are in charge of grant programs; and/or 3) charge at some point.

doe88 14y ago

I'm taking the cryptography course by Pr. Dan Boneh, it is awesome, it is really engaging, deep enough and all the material is very well done. Moreover I just discovered the second part of this course has been announced and is scheduled for early 2013, so it's fabulous. All I can say is that for this course I would even be willing to invest myself even more (both in time and money) at the level of requirement of a graduate course. I really would be interested in paying the standart fee and follow the same course than the stanford students follow and have a kind of official credit in reward.

jpdus 14y ago
Yep, i liked the crypto course a lot too (took part in the first iteration in March). The problem is that there is basically no "service" at all. The first iteration was delayed by several weeks (without any prior notice or status update) and there were several problems with the certificates (Ive gotten less programming credits than I should have and others had similar problems) but got no chance to get this corrected. I guess thats the problem with free courses (and thats the reason I would like to pay some fee for it): You can just record the lessons once and afterwards repeat the course how often you want with very little updates - and very little help/service for students.

baby 14y ago

I'm taking the cryptologie one, very interesting but also a bit hard to follow. I'm on week 4 whereas week 6 is already on and feel like I won't have time to finish it by the time the exam happens :( I've tried the sociology one but really didn't dig the first texts we had to read. I'm waiting for gamification, python, object in french, crypto II, greek mythology...

Dn_Ab 14y ago

Many of the computing and math courses are enough in my comfort zone that I can readily pick them up on my own. That, coupled with my belief in the future of quantative biology has made me sign up and take a number of chemistry, anatomy, medicine, drug, neuro and genetics courses. About 13 in all but only 2, no more than 3 per block of time which is good. The only outliers are the quantum computing and finance ones. I've programm(ed|ing) a spaced repitition native app that uses ideas from online sequential learning to challenge me (hah online learning for online learning). I can look at performance graphs per topic area over time. For now it just scores roughly based on text similarity but I've built a parser I can use for the more mathematical ones. By the end of a couple of courses it should be a very interesting project. It currently additionally allows for searching and note taking but I noticed when I go over my notes I tend to go back and forth on certain concepts so I will implement a history concept and automatic topic map building (using both cookie trails and measures of similarity). An unintentional side effect due to Markdown support and html generation is that it generates something like a wiki but far easier.

pitt1980 14y ago
If someone came up with a good spaced repition app for retaining the learning from all these online classes, I'd be happy to pay $20 - 30 for something like that (market survey of 1)
- Dn_Ab 14y ago
  It's very important to me that I retain the information so I'm testing this on myself. My motivation is not monetary though. My approach is inspired by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Craig_(Jeopardy!_contestant)#Preparation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Craig_(Jeopardy!_contesta...
  - pitt1980 14y ago
    yeah, I read about that in http://www.amazon.com/Final-Jeopardy-Machine-Quest-Everything/dp/0547483163/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342527569&sr=8-1&keywords=Final+Jeopardy%3A+Man+Vs.+Machine+and+the+Quest+to+Know+Everything http://www.amazon.com/Final-Jeopardy-Machine-Quest-Everythin... I'm not enough of a hacker yet to actually do that myself

tokenadult 14y ago

Who on HN is taking one or more of these courses? I'm trying to get used to the model by taking courses that will mostly be for review (but I expect that they will get into some material that is new for me, or forgotten through lack of practice for me) such as Statistics One by Princeton University starting 3 September 2012, taught by Andrew Conway Calculus: Single Variable by University of Pennsylvania 27 August 2012, taught by Robert Ghrist Introduction to Logic by Stanford University 24 September 2012, taught by Michael Genesereth I'm currently in the Udacity introductory courses on statistics and physics, again for personal review and also to check them out for my children. I'm intensely curious about how this course delivery model will develop, so I'm jumping in to use the Massive Open Online Courses to study subjects I like to self-study anyhow.

stordoff 14y ago
The Intro to Logic course is pretty good IMO. The lectures are pretty dry (not much that you can do about that really), but the content is solid.

jonstjohn 14y ago

I took machine learning the first time it was offered, and took about half of the PGM class before personal commitments won out temporarily (it was quite demanding, 10-15 hours per week). I re-signed up for PGM so I can give it another go this fall. Quality was really fantastic. Some people complained that ML was not as hard as the Stanford class, but I probably wasn't expecting quite that level in a free, online class, so expectations on my end were more reasonable.

fuzzythinker 14y ago

Didn't know Hinton is doing a NN course. Hope he gets into the deep net stuff. For those interested too, link is: https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets

dysoco 14y ago

I signed up in Algorithms I and Functional Programming in Scala. I'm also taking Algorithms in Udacity, but I don't really like Udacity too much.

Rickasaurus 14y ago

I took ML Class (quite easy) last fall, PGM Class (a ton of work, but well worth it) in the spring and have just started the Quantum Computing class. Be careful, they're addictive!