|
I suspect most of [EDIT: many?] HN readers breezed through calculus using nothing but free online resources. With zero attitude, I say that I am truly impressed. I wish I was that amazing of a student. I followed the more typical educational path of taking calculus in college. Some of it was easy, some of it was hard, but I seriously doubt that I would have been self-motivated enough to go through the entire sequence of calculus course material on my own. The pressure induced by being part of an in-person class, for a grade, and not for free, made me feel like I had to learn the material, and avail myself of whatever resources I needed, be it asking questions of the professor, going to tutoring sessions, reading extra books, whatever, to make sure that I learned it. I totally wish I was so self-motivated that I could learn absolutely anything at any breadth and at any depth without any external reason to do so. But on my own, there are limits to what I make myself study. Which isn't to say that I'm stupid on my own, but rather, I appreciated the in-person college experience mainly for applying pressure on me to learn things that I wouldn't have otherwise. (And as a result, I did become more inclined to study broader and deeper on my own.) In my cursory experience with MOOCs thus far, I don't see them applying that same pressure. Maybe they can; I'm not sure. But unless they do, I think that a lot of people (especially outside of HN, etc.) will find value in actually going to school. |