4 ms·

I wholeheartedly agree with the OP. I took Prof Malan's course via the Harvard Extension School my junior year of high school while trying to get into programm

by aruss 14y ago

I wholeheartedly agree with the OP. I took Prof Malan's course via the Harvard Extension School my junior year of high school while trying to get into programming. I first tried to get into PHP and C++ the prior summer (I had no clue, and had no idea of how clueless I was). Enter MIT's OCW and CS50. I quickly watched all of the lectures in about a week or so, and decided to take the course for the following fall shortly thereafter. Prof Malan is one of the best lecturers I have had the pleasure to learn from, knowing how to keep an audience interested in just about anything. Malan and his army of TAs have also done a fantastic job of creating a community around CS50, and have provided a plethora of resources for their students. Their assignments and problem sets were also perfect. They were challenging and interesting without being inaccessible; teaching both programming skills and being relevant to important CS concepts. We also got a special lecture from Brian Kernighan at the end, which was a real treat. I'm extremely appreciative for the skills and knowledge CS50 has given me, and would highly recommend it to anyone willing to take on the challenge. It's the reason why I have my current interest in and basic understanding of CS. I'm really excited for what online education can offer if many other classes can be brought up to the high standard Prof Malan and his team has set. With 5 years of community college (8th-12th grade) and a semester at a top liberal arts college, all taken in-person, CS50 remains one of my favorite classes (in terms of interest, challenge, fun, etc). I should also mention I took CS75 with Malan as well, and while it wasn't quite as enjoyable for a number of reasons, it was also an excellent course.

benesch 14y ago
Malan truly is a fantastic lecturer, isn't he? He's also been leading the charge for free, online education—his course has been on MIT's OCW since 2007 [1]. Did you find that the lectures provided enough basis to complete the problem sets? A number of students I talked to struggled to actually piece together code after the presentation of mostly concepts in lecture. [1] http://cs50.tv http://cs50.tv
- aruss 14y ago
  I thought they were fine - I did watch some of the TAs virtual office hours on a couple of problem sets, but beyond that, the problem sets were largely good. I'm incredibly glad that the lectures were conceptually focused. It may have been a bit harder to do the assignments, but it forced you to really learn them. You had to go from concept to code on your own. In other classes (including CS75), it was much easier as you could copy a lot of work from lectures and office hours.
- eriktrautman 14y ago
  Malan's energy is awesome. For some of the more beastly problem sets in data structures and memory management, where Googling the error message just didn't cut it, I had to watch through all that week's available content (both lectures, both recitations, the walkthrough and the shorts) before gaining enough momentum to grind by. That's where it really hurt to not have another student sitting in the next seat to bounce ideas off of. They've put together a well monitored forum but it's not the same as walking someone through your code. I got it done, but some gray hairs could have been avoided. One of the major areas of improvement for all online ed is how to bring back that frictionless asking of questions. It's a comparative advantage for both people -- you may save me two hours of frustration with ten minutes of your time on a particular memory error and I may save you two hours of frustration in a similar fashion by better understanding pointers.

by aruss 14y ago

benesch 14y ago

Malan truly is a fantastic lecturer, isn't he? He's also been leading the charge for free, online education—his course has been on MIT's OCW since 2007 [1]. Did you find that the lectures provided enough basis to complete the problem sets? A number of students I talked to struggled to actually piece together code after the presentation of mostly concepts in lecture. [1] http://cs50.tv http://cs50.tv

aruss 14y ago
I thought they were fine - I did watch some of the TAs virtual office hours on a couple of problem sets, but beyond that, the problem sets were largely good. I'm incredibly glad that the lectures were conceptually focused. It may have been a bit harder to do the assignments, but it forced you to really learn them. You had to go from concept to code on your own. In other classes (including CS75), it was much easier as you could copy a lot of work from lectures and office hours.
eriktrautman 14y ago
Malan's energy is awesome. For some of the more beastly problem sets in data structures and memory management, where Googling the error message just didn't cut it, I had to watch through all that week's available content (both lectures, both recitations, the walkthrough and the shorts) before gaining enough momentum to grind by. That's where it really hurt to not have another student sitting in the next seat to bounce ideas off of. They've put together a well monitored forum but it's not the same as walking someone through your code. I got it done, but some gray hairs could have been avoided. One of the major areas of improvement for all online ed is how to bring back that frictionless asking of questions. It's a comparative advantage for both people -- you may save me two hours of frustration with ten minutes of your time on a particular memory error and I may save you two hours of frustration in a similar fashion by better understanding pointers.