Week 15 - My Goals for the MIT Challenge

For more information about the challenge, check out the homepage: http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/mit-challenge/

Category:

Education

Tags:

• MIT Challenge
• college
• learning
• learn faster
• rapid learning
• studying
• student
• school
• university

[eklok5000]

hey scott! nice vid!

general question: ive been following you on a few more projects than only the MIT-challange...how good do you remember that stuff on long terms?

[TheMITChallenge]

@eklok5000 - It's hard to say, I've only been doing the MIT Challenge for a few months. Forgetting things is always a possibility, but if you understood the ideas deeply then relearning isn't as hard. I've noticed within the challenge that the most important ideas keep recurring in different contexts, so that provides a modicum of reminders.

[apblopes]

I fully understand those MIT guys getting mad at you. lol They're spending tons of money and time, but not necessarily getting better or even similar results. I'm a big fan of self-learning. In fact, I believe ALL learning is self-learning in a sense, and I bet you'll end up better than many CS "orthodox" students, from MIT or elsewhere...

[TheMITChallenge]

I don't think I'll necessarily be trumping MIT students. Part of the weakness of benchmarking is that I'm using their own system without the resources. My hope is instead to show a tradeoff, if I can gain most of the knowledge for a quarter of the time and 1% of the cost, I think that makes an interesting possibility.

[kos37ter96]

Even when content is very interesting, it is hard to maintain focus over many hours of work. How do you remain focused when doing a great deal of work each and every day?

[TheMITChallenge]

@kos37ter96 - Innate focusing ability plays a role, certainly. But focus is also like a muscle, you can strengthen it through progressive conditioning. Good habits like not using the internet or email before work is over also help.

[Celestrall]

Hey! I just found your videos today, while watching some MIT Algorithms lectures, because I missed one at my university, hehe.. But for the prerequisites I was looking up some of the other MIT classes and noticed that most of them don't have video lectures..

How do you study the courses that don't have video lectures?

[hotelroomsmoker]

@ScottHYoungVid I would respectfully disagree with you on the self-taught coders. I have known a lot of the "self-taughts" and the majority of them gave in and got a degree(which was a piece of cake for most of them.) This is not always the case, but truly, going it alone is the harder of the two paths and ultimately limits one's options. 

I was unaware that you already had a career as a writer, what about computer program intrigues you?

[ScottHYoungVid]

@hotelroomsmoker - The truth is I already have the career I want as a writer, and I have no real desire to work either in academia or for a large corporation in the future. That said, not having a degree isn't necessarily a waste, particularly in computer programming (related, but not the same as comp sci) where self-taught coders with strong portfolios can have solid careers without formal credentials.

[hotelroomsmoker]

Like your vids...but don't you think you may be short-changing yourself a bit here? Hard fact of life is you need credentials to get by. All of this work you are doing will be a waste if you do not follow up with either attending a real university or by starting a business(I suggest the former).

...if you do attend a university after doing a year of rigorous self-learning, you will be way ahead of the game...

[maokize]

@TheMITChallenge I see, thanks Scott. Q: how do you balance an evening/night social life with an early morning study schedule? Have you adopted bi- or polyphasic sleep?

[TheMITChallenge]

@maokize - I'm not from the Valley and I don't run a start-up, so I only know about that world tangentially. My sense is that (a) being able to build things and (b) knowing people are the two most useful skills to have. Business knowledge is important, but since it's so context specific, that often boils down largely to having the network of mentors from (b).

[TheMITChallenge]

@rogerbflorentino - The problems of general AI has always been a big interest of mine, since at some level it explores how minds from an engineering perspective.