Ask HN: Is it worthy to do a MIT Challenge and how much will I benefit from it?

[r3bl]

In case you don't know (and you probably don't) about the MIT Challenge, it is a challenge where you try to finish the whole MIT curriculum on your own using the free MIT resources (available here [1]). Even though you don't get an official MIT diploma, you actually learn pretty much everything MIT students learn (and you can prove it by doing some projects and putting them online).

It was suggested by Scott Young in a post in his blog [2]. He also gave a TEDx talk about it [3].

I'm wondering, how much will I benefit from it? Should I include it in my resume if I manage to complete it (under the additional education section)? Do you think it is worthy spending a year of doing so? Do you think that job recruiters will appreciate it?

[1] ocw.mit.edu/index.htm [2] www.scotthyoung.com/blog/mit-challenge/ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piSLobJfZ3c

[avinassh]

Short answer is no. I really doubt how it will benefit if you try to learn 4 years of course in an year. Mostly you will be skimming things most of the time. Learning things take time. It's not easy process. If you want to do it to learn CS, but don't worry about completing in an year, then do it. However it will take 2-3 years easily (assuming you have a day job).

Is it worth it? Yes, totally. But it may not be useful if you just want to hurry up the whole thing. Your goal should be to learn, not to finish it in an year.

I saw same discussion on /r/learnprogramming [0], the top answer reflects my exact same opinion:

Given that the MIT challenge was never actually completed with integrity in the first place, it's going to be impossible.

Scott Young is a publicist - his goal is to sell, sell, sell. Completing a world-renowned 4-year curriculum in 1 years time is impossible.

Young marked his own tests (meaning no independent verification), gave himself a pass threshold of 50% (when the reality for MIT is more like 70%), didn't do his Psets, erased the original correct answers from the tests he found (meaning that he already knew what the answers would be), and his only form of progress comes in his one-man Youtube videos. There's no external validation of his success, other than what we take his word to be.

He's a marketer, plain and simple.

[0] - http://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/2vxt6r/the...

[lumberjack]

No. If you have the time to sink figure out how to attend classes at the local state university. A few college credits that way would be immensely more valuable even if you don't complete the degree.

And having used MIT's material extensively while going through my studies I have to say the material is not really extraordinary. It's not what gives MIT students an edge over others. That edge is due to the motivating and challenging environment. So you probably won't get MIT level anything just by going through the videos and doing the problem sets.