Get more from life Scott Young recently finished an astoundi...

Terrence Miao - 2012-11-06 22:24:16+1100 - Updated: 2012-11-06 22:24:16+1100

Get more from life

Scott Young recently finished an astounding feat: he completed all 33 courses in MIT’s fabled computer science curriculum, from Linear Algebra to Theory of Computation, in less than one year. More importantly, he did it all on his own, watching the lectures online and evaluating himself using the actual exams.

That works out to around 1 course every 1.5 weeks.

Read more: http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/10/26/mastering-linear-algebra-in-10-days-astounding-experiments-in-ultra-learning/ and MIT challenge blog: http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/mit-challenge/

Scott is a speed-reading, vegetarian, holistic learning, productivity hacking recent university graduate. And, for the last five years he's been experimentin...

Terrence Miao - 2012-11-06 22:27:00+1100

Unbelievable! Absolutely unbelievable!!

+Casper Casper As you are studying MIT courses, what is your comments on study faster and learn quicker? Is it possible?

Michael Poloni - 2012-11-07 07:47:19+1100

I'm highly suspicious. Either the bloke is incredibly intelligent or he came into the studies with prior knowledge. Speeding through such subjects is also not a good way to ensure long-term memory of what was studied (just like cramming for exams is good only for retaining knowledge for a week or two).

Casper Casper - 2012-11-07 09:52:55+1100

I've started a bunch of courses on https://www.edx.org/ but I never end up making the time to go through all the material.
It has to be possible to go faster than we did at uni though

Terrence Miao - 2012-11-07 23:51:16+1100

+Michael Poloni A good computer developer needs years of years learning and practice. I would ask this guy whether he reckons he could start programming and be a better developer soon after he finishes the course. Experience and mindset in industry is totally different to the things learned from books in ivory tower.

Terrence Miao - 2012-11-10 15:14:55+1100

+Michael Poloni “Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter.”

- Eric S. Raymond