
Ask HN: Which MOOCs are often overlooked? - jmstfv
Which online courses&#x2F;MOOCs are of superb quality but aren&#x27;t well-known (regardless of topic)?
======
krrishd
I think it's been taken down, but the Startup Engineering MOOC on Coursera
taught by Balaji Srinivasan (of Stanford + a16z) was extremely valuable to go
through, both from a technical and non-technical standpoint. It was kinda like
the "How To Start A Startup" course going on right now except slightly more
preparatory for the technical challenges involved.

~~~
sharmi
Here is the course page [http://online.stanford.edu/course/startup-
engineering](http://online.stanford.edu/course/startup-engineering) and
[http://startup.stanford.edu/](http://startup.stanford.edu/)

and

the course videos
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL58C6Q25sEEFVyISrZc80...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL58C6Q25sEEFVyISrZc80RhYFpyMF_DYl)

------
DanBC
Citizen Maths: [https://www.citizenmaths.com/](https://www.citizenmaths.com/)

> Citizen Maths is for people who want to improve their grasp of maths, and
> become more confident in using maths at work and in life. Maths may have
> passed you by at school. Or you may be rusty. Maybe you’ve passed maths
> exams but find it hard to apply what you know to the types of problem you
> need to solve now. Problems like using spreadsheets, judging amounts or
> assessing odds.

> If so, then Citizen Maths may be for you.

> The course is at 'Level 2' — the level that a 16-year-old school leaver is
> expected to achieve in maths.

It's from the UK.

~~~
wodenokoto
How would you compare this to Khan Academy, which also has math up to (and
beyond) 9th grade

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macp
For entrepreneurship, I would recommend: (a) Technology Entrepreneurship, and
(b) Venture Deals with Brad Feld -- both are team and project-based
experiential courses offered via novoed.

Technology Entrepreneurship is focused on the lean startup. The next session
is expected around June.

Venture Deals is sponsored by Kauffman Fellows Academy and TechStars and is
all about funding. A new offering just started and you can still join at
[https://app.novoed.com/kfa-venture-deals-
spring17/](https://app.novoed.com/kfa-venture-deals-spring17/)

------
rwieruch
[https://www.educative.io/learn](https://www.educative.io/learn)

~~~
2_listerine_pls
He said MOOC, not platform.

~~~
rwieruch
Yep. I don't no why, but I always misunderstood the term MOOC. Thanks :)

------
eps
Apparently, MOOC is a "massive open online course."

------
adamb_
fast.ai

~~~
yolorn123
I'm thinking of taking the course. How is the course when compared to other
mooc?

------
JPLeRouzic
For me, MOOC were initially a bet that the way we work, would shift from the
classical way where you are employed for years at the same place, to a gig
economy. The reasoning goes like that: If you spend only a short time with
employers, then you do no need to waste long time in universities. On contrary
you could take a quick course on the needed subject and would prove your
fitness to a job by other means (Github/Hackaday/...)

Unfortunately all classical long term jobs will not disappear overnight,
companies are social constructs because they have customers that are human,
they need people they can trust. In addition, the gig economy had frightened
many so many people, that they thought that having a university degree is the
best way to escape it. So much for the MOOCs.

I think that as usual (and as Paul Graham said in 2012) universities will be
challenged by new comers, but for me it will not be MOOCs. Universities are
becoming more and more commodities (as reported in another HN discussion which
says that the average IQ of the increasing masses going to university, is
diminishing simply as the result of the IQ distribution law). Employers will
trust them less and less to select the best individuals.

This is not new, I remember during the mid 90', there was a recruiting crisis,
there was not enough people mastering the C language, the answer was not to
make everybody to learn it, it was to invent new languages (Java/PHP/Python)
that were much less demanding and also new tooling (IDE) making it possible
for less gifted but more numerous people to enter this industry.

So the next thing will not be MOOCs or more people to universities, but
tooling like DARPA's AIDA [0] applied to science. On a lesser scale, tooling
like Galaxy[1] in biology, are excellent steps in the right direction.

There are many benefits for the society at large to create tools to plan,
assist, track and audit the intellectual processes, the science replication
crisis is a good example.

[0]
[https://padiracinnovation.org/2017/04/07/362/](https://padiracinnovation.org/2017/04/07/362/)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_(computational_biology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_\(computational_biology\))

~~~
dragonwriter
> This is not new, I remember during the mid 90', there was a recruiting
> crisis, there was not enough people mastering the C language, the answer was
> not to make everybody to learn it, it was to invent new languages
> (Java/PHP/Python) that were much less demanding and also new tooling (IDE)
> making it possible for less gifted but more numerous people to enter this
> industry.

Python was invented in 1991, not in response to any crisis in the mid-1990s,
none were innvented for that purpose, and IDEs were invented in the 1980s. The
narrative you are weaving is creative, but doesn't really hold up to even
modest scrutiny.

~~~
JPLeRouzic
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum#Computer_Prog...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum#Computer_Programming_for_Everybody)

Excerpt:"In 1999, Van Rossum submitted a funding proposal to DARPA called
Computer Programming for Everybody, in which he further defined his goals for
Python:

    
    
        an easy and intuitive language just as powerful as major competitors
        ...
        code that is as understandable as plain English"

