
Why Virtual Classes Can Be Better Than Real Ones (2015) - DiabloD3
http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-virtual-classes-can-be-better-than-real-ones
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RobinL
I've been working as a data scientist for a few years now, primarily self
taught using the wealth of high quality videos and other materials online.

I recently worked as a teaching assistant on an expensive and well-regarded
data science bootcamp course. I did this primarily because I was curious what
classroom-based training in data science was like.

I found it much less useful than online materials. It seemed like the primary
benefit was just that once you've stumped up several thousand pounds, you're
motivated to actually show up and concentrate. And you also get to meet some
people with a common interest.

But the quality of teaching fell well below the standard online (not
surprisingly, when online you have access to lectures by superstars like
Hadley Wickham, Peter Norvig and Andrew Ng, with lectures that have been
carefully recorded).

And on top of that, it's not a great use of time. A half hour to commute to
get to the lecture. Then the lectures being in 'real time'. Online, I find
myself running video lectures at 1.5 or 2x speed for large portions of the
material - the 'filler' \- and then having to watch, re-watch the hard
concepts several times at normal speed and pause just to think.

I found that at the end of the classroom course, I had developed an awareness
of the existence of concepts and techniques, but not really an understanding
of them.

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vortegne
Can you talk about finding a job in data science despite being self taught?

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paki123
+1'd. Also, whether working in the field has satisfied you as you had hoped.

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RobinL
I've been a government analyst for around 10 years, starting my career as an
economist (after graduating with an economics degree). This meant I was
working with numbers a lot, and I found that my strengths were mainly in
statistics and working with complex datasets rather than e.g. macroeconomic
analysis.

This meant I had started to build up examples of projects which were getting
close to 'data science' (the term, I think, is vague). Custom interactive data
vis in d3.js, forecasting and regression modelling etc.

I also started quite a large web scraping project in my own time, which led to
me needing to develop a much stronger programming skillset, and gave me some
more tangible examples of having done 'data sciency' stuff.

When data science took off in UK gvt a few years ago, that meant I was well
positioned to make the switch. No-one had much experience at that point, so it
wasn't too hard to get a first role. I think generally, there's such strong
demand for data scientists that there's a mismatch between the job spec (which
look scary), and the candidates (who aren't the data science unicorns the job
ads ask for). So with a few projects under your belt, it worth having a crack
at applying for stuff.

In terms of being satisfied: It helps working for government because we're
trying to use data to make better decisions that help people. There's
definitely too many buzz words and fluff, and it's difficult to help non-data
scientists understand what's hard (all the data engineering and modelling
leading up to delivery) and what's not (a flashy data vis) - so it's hard to
convince non-data scientists to allocate resource to the best areas. The flip
side is that it's really clear there is a great opportunity to change how we
do analysis for the better. So overall it's pretty good.

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visarga
> This is particularly true in the fraught area of STEM (Science, Technology,
> Engineering, Math), where difficult explanations often cry out for a student
> to replay a portion of a lecture, or simply to take a pause while
> comprehension works its way to consciousness

Or to do a couple of exercises until students really grasp the subject matter.
Often it feels like we can grasp something in theory, only to be stumped by
practical applications. One of the greatest benefits a course could have is
example problems, with fully explained solutions. If the problems are fun to
work through, then it makes for a good course.

What I'd like to see is a promise on the likes of:

> Do these 100 problems and you'll grock X (where X is probability, calculus,
> functional programming, deep learning, etc)!

And the problems be well chosen, well explained and fun to work out.

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cel1ne
I realised that with mathematics in school and university.

Even though I usually understood everything after hearing it once I was only
able to get an A on an exam after I did the calculations at least once by
myself.

If I didn't do that I would get caught up on "unknown unknowns", lose time and
get a C.

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aswanson
Same experience here. Math et al are technique oriented at that level. You
simply have to practice to get good at it, no way around it. Just like
comprehending a jump shot is no substitute for taking hundreds of shots a day
if you want to get good at it.

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interestingemu
Jesus, it took me way too long to realize this was about online classes, not
virtual classes in languages. :-)

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mikestew
I read it "huh? You have to subclass it eventually to make an instance, right?
I dunno, let's go see what the comments say...WTF?"

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colmvp
So I've been taking online courses on the side for the last little while,
including the author's often recommended, Learning How to Learn. I guess I was
spurred on because I felt like I wanted to use my spare time doing something
outside of playing games during the winter.

I have to say that watching lectures on Khan Academy, Udacity, or YouTube
rekindled my love of learning. Now, I look forward to a block of spare time
when I can watch a video and test out my knowledge by practicing on various
quizzes from university sources, or by picking up a book with harder examples.
And of course, one major advantage is that if I get stuck on a term or
concept, I can rewind the lecture, or search on Google for more explanation,
or find yet another YouTube video with another take on it. And if I get stuck,
I recognize to take one step back and take a refresher on more fundamental
concepts.

I think that's why I prefer it over being back in school where the quality and
personal connection to the teacher varied so heavily, and the class/course
just kept going regardless of your comprehension. We all know those one or two
teachers growing up who were so exceptionally bad at teaching a particular
subject that it's quite probable some students stopped going in a certain path
because of that struggle. Just look up popular math or biology videos, and
you'll find students who leave comments like, "Wow you just explained in five
minutes what my teacher/prof tried teaching me for x months." I know so many
smart people who don't think they could excel in variety of subjects because
of bad experiences in school, treating it like a mark of permanence. And it
didn't help that some teachers honestly believed if you didn't get it then,
well tough luck, you're hopeless.

I still much prefer in-class instructions, largely for the communal experience
of learning with others and because the curriculum tends to be more rigorous
than online courses. But I find online videos, and write-ups far more
effective at teaching me complex things over the average teacher/professor.
And one can sometimes make up the difference in difficulty by taking up
personal projects or finding difficult quizzes/tests online.

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treehau5
I think a lot of this is stemming from the deeper issue that kids are just
tired of being charged absurd amounts of money for a cookie cutter syllabus
based on a text book, and then tested on it, while the college shoves as many
kids in classrooms and labs as possible and praising their "% of grads that
find jobs immediately after graduating!"

As a reaction to that, yes I agree. However, we will be fooling ourselves if
you think that anything compares being next to a real teacher. Someone who has
intimate knowledge of the subject. Someone who truly cares about teaching and
guiding. I can think of all the MIT OpenCourseWare lectures I watched where my
mouth dropped to the floor and I said to myself "Gosh I really wish I could of
had a teacher like that at my University" And I can only imagine being able to
actually go up to their office and get personal 1 on 1 time with them, or work
along side some of them in research...crazy, but getting that experience at
some state college in middle america somewhere is just a rarity, a needle in a
haystack.

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amykhar
I've been lucky enough to get that experience with a Udacity course. The first
time Peter Norvig taught Design of Computer Programs, he was very active in
the forums and in Google Hangouts. I got the chance to study from one of the
best out there, and it didn't cost me a dime.

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itsmemattchung
Virtual classes are better in some ways and inferior (to in person) in others.

I'm currently applying for a masters in computer science and debating between
attending a program in person or online. One advantage of attending in person
is immersing myself in a class room full of students, aligned with a similar
goal in mind. An online course, on the other hand, offers me more flexibility
(I'm working full time at AWS) and saves me time on commuting.

Although I'm constantly studying on my own and leveraging online courses, I'm
leaning towards an in person program for a couple reasons. First, I recently
moved to Seattle and the university of Washington (UW) offers a program
tailored for working professionals; this is a great way to not only meet other
people on a similar path, but, most importantly, receive in-person feedback
from the professors (as well as other students). Feedback, as well as
networking, is really difficult to replicate with an online format.

On an separate note, I have yet to find an online masters in CS that offers a
thesis—all the programs I researched only offer course based work.

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mrits
I worked on a few projects where I wished the other coders only wrote virtual
classes.

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cadillackness
The only problem with MOOCs I've had is that they assume the message boards
are usable (they're not) and basically non-existent study groups. The boards
are insanely slow and they're no substitute for office hours or a study group.
Study groups are hard to put together because most people don't have 2-5
people in real life interested in taking the course and have time to come
together on a Friday night. Though I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, those
two factors have caused me to "fudge" the homework a little bit because
there's just no way I can tackle something like that on my own and finish it
on time. I still learned the material, but there's always the guilt that I
"cheated" because I just don't have the time to finish it without any external
help.

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santiagobasulto
I don't know about MOOCs, but I teach Programming online (we have a remote
bootcamp) and I prefer the online experience 1000 times more than the physical
experience. The amazing groups of people that we create, having folks from all
around the world is invaluable. They feel comfortable, secure, and motivated.

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hergin
My main perspective on the issue: If I want to learn a completely new topic, I
like it to with a teacher standing in front of me. Otherwise, I can take an
online course just to recall some topics and update my outdated information.

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hergin
I forgot why. Because I like to interact and get answers for my unique
questions from the teacher. Not a lot of online classes provide this
interaction. Actually most of them are prerecorded videos and stuff.

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gcdes
DataCamp is what got me my current job - I think the extra flexibility is what
makes virtual classes better than real ones

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mrdmnd
Ok, I'll bite - I thought this was an article about C++.

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desireco42
This is such a perfect comment! Love it.

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RhysU
Me too, as I pondered the vtbl arguments to come.

