What is really interesting to me at present is the way they chose to make the "The Course" video. All the other courses had a video where the instructor is sort of looking into the camera and directly talking to me. Some even look like they are looking into my soul. But the instructors here chose a more candid way to make a video. The instructors are looking to the right (our left) as if talking to someone else. You can easily say that they are not reading off a prompter so it feels like they are having a conversation with a bunch of students. I really, really liked that. It gave me that feel where I am just being introduced to my faculty and a bunch of us students went into his cabin just to say hi. It feels more of a candid conversation while other videos feel like a one on one interaction. In situations like these the one on one interaction is actually off putting to me. When meeting with a faculty I always find myself comfortable if they are talking to us in a group.
I understand they want some flexibility, but it would be nice to know what classes will be offered in the future, so I can plan accordingly. The ML class is being offered again but the AI class isn't. There's 4 or 5 I'd like to take from the upcoming schedule, and I'd hate to miss out on any of them. If I knew one would be repeated, it would make it an easier decision to make.
I know it's "FREE", but it would still be helpful to know what some of the options are in the future, so I could plan accordingly.
There seems to be at least a new one every few days or so... by the time Jan rolls around there likely will be over a couple dozen to choose from.
I've been doing the AI class and that eats anywhere from 6-10 hours of my time per week, in addition to doing some ancillary thing (just finished LPTHW, moving on to Eloquent JS), a full time job, and having some semblance of a social life I don't know if I could handle more than 2 max, esp if they both involve programming assignments. This really is such a kid in a candy store experience, there are at least 4 I really want to take and 10 that I would if I had the time.
No, not 261. Tim Roughgarden is breaking CS161, Design and Analysis of Algorithms what is usually a one-quarter into two five-week pieces offered initially in the winter and spring quarters, respectively.
This also explains the 'I' after the course title in the current online offering.
Whether they will be easy to follow or not will probably depend on how much free time you have now. I work fifty hours a week and socialise often and have found it difficult to keep up with all three courses currently running. I imagine for someone in my position two would be the sweet spot.
I started taking the Machine Learning class while going to school full time and I had to drop out. It was just too much. I also work full time and have a toddler, however. If I was single I think I could handle it.
I've gotten behind in that class as well, but I plan on downloading all of the videos soon so that I can at least go through them without doing the quizzes/exercises next year.
If you want to work at Matasano, you should just mail me; we can give you pointers. :)
I get busy sometimes, and I'm not always as great at responding to mail as I want to be. You can feel free to nag me for as long as your patience holds out. I WILL eventually respond.
The short answer here is "maybe". Specifically: if you take this class and fall in love with the subject matter --- particularly things like memory hardening and finding vulnerabilities --- we'll be happy to hear that. The certification itself doesn't mean anything to us at all. It's the enthusiasm and engagement that we're looking for.
