As an immediate step, data analysis sounds good. :)
As a theoretical, how about medicine, pharmacology, every flavour of engineering, fine art, music, architecture.
Coding, graphic design seem to have a few things going for them that make them a very natural fit for self learning online. Part of it is not needing much outside of a laptop and an internet connection, but math needs even less and you find far fewer autodidact mathematicians.
I suspect that not needing a curriculum is actually a part of it. I don't dispute that having a curriculum available to you can be useful and that following a curriculum will get you from start to finish will probably give you a relatively efficient, high success rate path. But, I think that the more self contained and small an effective quanta of learning is, the more suited it is to self learning.
Considering that learning is a means to an end for most people, another factor is employers' willingness to hire a self-taught individual -- far greater in areas like software development or design (where one can showcase one's skills through a portfolio) than say medicine (where the only credential of accepted value is a professional degree). Not saying that's the way it should necessarily be, but the status quo presents a hurdle for self-learners and content creators.
That said, we're in this for the long haul, and we definitely want to try and push the boundaries in areas other than software/technology down the road.
Comments
I wish more subjects/professions were accessible like this.
We're working on it! Next up: Data analysis. Which ones would you like to see?
As an immediate step, data analysis sounds good. :)
As a theoretical, how about medicine, pharmacology, every flavour of engineering, fine art, music, architecture.
Coding, graphic design seem to have a few things going for them that make them a very natural fit for self learning online. Part of it is not needing much outside of a laptop and an internet connection, but math needs even less and you find far fewer autodidact mathematicians.
I suspect that not needing a curriculum is actually a part of it. I don't dispute that having a curriculum available to you can be useful and that following a curriculum will get you from start to finish will probably give you a relatively efficient, high success rate path. But, I think that the more self contained and small an effective quanta of learning is, the more suited it is to self learning.
Considering that learning is a means to an end for most people, another factor is employers' willingness to hire a self-taught individual -- far greater in areas like software development or design (where one can showcase one's skills through a portfolio) than say medicine (where the only credential of accepted value is a professional degree). Not saying that's the way it should necessarily be, but the status quo presents a hurdle for self-learners and content creators.
That said, we're in this for the long haul, and we definitely want to try and push the boundaries in areas other than software/technology down the road.
Like I said, data analysis sounds great as a next week idea. Where can I hear about it when it goes live?
Well, the alpha version just went live at http://www.mysliderule.com/data-analysis-intro.
We'll work on structure / organization and release an updated version later this week.
Cool.
BTW, as a side note. I think a great idea for a data course would be
Learn to make http://xkcd.com/980/ as its starting point.
Where does he get this data. How does he work with it. Why is it represented like this.
some mindblowing numbers there. Thanks for sharing!