A few professors from Stanford University are performing an experiment in distributed education by offering three computer science classes for free. There are many educational materials out there if you want to learn, but this is a good way to push yourself and be graded on your work. If you want to check it out without committing, the basic level version is like the advanced but without the test taking.

My goal in doing this is to learn about subjects with which I have little familiarity. Therefore, I am skipping out on the Introduction to Databases class. I will be participating in the Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence classes. I find these subjects fascinating but have not studied them in depth. To aid in my efforts, I will be using the two reddits focused on these subjects: r/mlclass and r/aiclass. The great thing about having over 50,000 people taking part in a class is the extremely large study groups you get from it.

I signed up for the advanced versions of the classes, but I may have to switch to basic if it’s too much to handle on the road. DevReach is coming soon, and I will be flying to Bulgaria to take part in the fun.

Some of the code for the AI class has been ported to C#. I’ll be translating the original Java and using C# language features as I go, so I may be adding to the library of stuff that already exists.

If you’re joining these classes and want to do a hangout with others in the class, add on me Google+.