Online Programming Courses from Standford Uni
Posted on | November 18, 2008 |
If like me, you never got the chance or had the money to go to university to study your topic of choice there is still hope for us yet! I didn’t really fancy the debt of 15,000 pounds worth of student loans and course fees aged 18, I already had enough debt as it was. So I skipped the whole university phase and went straight from school to work on an ISP help desk.
Now aged 26, I’m kind of feeling the need to push myself out of the whole PHP / JS / HTML / CSS web development world/comfort zone. While it pays the bills, it can get a little repetitive at times, don’t get me wrong, my first programming love was and always will be PHP.
I learnt PHP by reading books, lots and lots of books, some e-books and some textbooks. However, reading sucks - if you’re trying to learn a new programming language. You have to first wade through the jargon at the start, then its just paragraph upon paragraph of text (unless you read the Head First Books by O’Reilly - they rule!), with a few code samples thrown in for clarity. I much prefer to have someone teach me, which, of course, costs money and requires time off work.
Now if you’re like me and:
- a) a total skin flint (tight with the cash)
- b) work full time so can’t sack off to uni for 3 years
- c) Live somewhere were the night school courses are pretty crappy
you’re left with the option of reading books or seeking out online videos. So If you’ve already checked out the ExtJs and Douglas Crockford videos I posted earlier - more power to you. If not, there’s plenty of time for that.
Here’s some interesting courses I found online from Stanford “the birthplace of Google” University. I figured hey, if there’s a place to learn programming properly, what better place to do it! I’m never going to be able to afford to go there, so I’ll try and glean what I can from their online resources!
Stanford Uni Online Courses
Introduction to Computer Science | Programming Methodology
- Youtube Playlist of the lectures can be found here.
Introduction to Computer Science | Programming Abstractions
- Youtube Playlist of the lectures is here.
Introduction to Computer Science | Programming Paradigms
- Course playlist on Youtube.
So Stanford Univeristy gets my seal of approval, 3 top quality courses with all the lectures on line for public viewing. There are more courses to be found on the course list, so I’m not going to link them all here. The lectures are approximately 50mins - 1hr long from what I’ve seen so far, which is just about the right time to hold your attention and can be squeezed into a lunch break. I love how they are all organised into Youtube Playlists too, so if you’re feeling fruity you can watch one right after another!
So far I’m 8 lectures into the Java Course - any ideas for a Java project to help hone my skills?
Videolectures.net
Like the heading says, there’s another really cool site for video lectures on some quite advanced science and technological subjects, I’ve not really dared (seriously I’m scared) see any of these so far. But here’s the link if Machine Learning, Probability and Graphical Models is your bag 
Some other noteworthy Youtube Channels.
So there’s plently of learning to be had, I’m making it my mission to get a degree before I’m 30. That gives me 4 years. Easy as!!
If you know of any other resources and think I should check them out, send a comment!
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One Response to “Online Programming Courses from Standford Uni”
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November 19th, 2008 @ 4:32 am
Might be worth looking at Open University courses, http://www.open.ac.uk/. There is a lot more to these course then you probably first think (Tutor support, learning materials, software etc).
Might be a bit expensive but I hear they are good. I’m tempted to do a maths degree some time in the future.