Scott Young

Scott Young has a lot on this, including going deep on the literature and explaining it to populist student audience: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/the-best-articles-on-learning/ For instance, on memory: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/02/15/memory/

I highly recommend Ultralearning [1]. It does not talk about hours required to learn something, but how to define your goal, plan out the study, and then immerse yourself into the task. https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/

Great course. I also highly recommend the book Ultralearning [1], which has a stronger focus on quickly mastering applied skills. [1]: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/

Teach Yourself CS [0] is a great resource. For other fields, I just went through courses on Coursera, MIT OpenCourseWare, etc or the various recommended books and followed along. For example for learning about interpreters, I'm using the book Crafting Interpreters [1] and doing it in Haskell, learning it from the book Haskell Programming From First Principles [2]. If you go to any school's CS degree program and go through their list of courses, you can basically do them for free by watching the videos and doing the assignments. This is what Scott Young did [3]. [0] https://teachyourselfcs.com [1] https://craftinginterpreters.com [2] https://haskellbook.com [3] https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/mit-challenge-2/

I bill my customers based on value delivered, not on my time exposed to a topic[0]. It could happen that my 15-year tinkering effects in great value delivered. My point is that time devoted to learning something is not free; you must consider it a business cost. Regardless of time exposed to the topic at hand, not necessarily a lot of time invested* into something results in a great deal of value to be delivered. You could optimize that time with ultra-learning techniques[1]. The correlation of time exposed to a topic doesn't result in the causation of how much should I charge a customer. -- [0]: https://www.ivanmontilla.com/blog/does-professional-experience-matter [1]: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/ EDIT: * Improved clarity by adding a word.

I wonder if anybody has built a Computer Science curriculum from the OCW lectures in a playlist or some other form, so people could (in theory) follow the same path as an actual MIT grad from beginning to end. This dude did something similar but he was mostly trying to sell his productivity method and ebooks. https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2018/03/15/how-successful-was-mit-cha… I am more interested in increasing my theoretical knowledge and taking deep classes in algorithms, data structures, linear algebra, vector calculus, and other foundational CS stuff.

I'm also self taught (to an extent). When I was making the transition to tech, I dived into the fundamentals very deeply with a collection of MOOCs (CS50 by Harvard is a great place to start regardless of your current skill level). I also explored several MIT open courseware materials. There's a great experiment by this guy that's basically answering your questions directly: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/mit-challenge-2/ If you're not familiar with object-oriented (OO) fundamentals, I'd probably start there since you're on the backend and will probably be exposed to OO eventually (perhaps already).

There's a recent work that does a great job explaining why humans have a difficult time reasoning. Humans don't have "Reason". They have "Reasons", and it is difficult to construct reason on top of this. https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/02/01/reason/

No matter what you choose to learn, it's good to learn how to learn. You have the free "Learning how to learn" course on coursera : https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn And I'm currently reading a book called "Ultralearning" by a guy called Scott H Young who I imagine is the type of person to be on hacker news and be like "Hey, thanks for recommending my book!" https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/ The book so far is great, there are certainly some principles which may seem obvious but in reality they need to be acknowledged and used effectively. Overall it's a clear read and gives a pretty clear way to get started on learning a ton of things in a short amount of time. No shortcuts though, still a ton of effort involved.

Kind of disappointed with this article. I thought it would have more practical advice vs. just defining categories of learning (i.e. incremental, transformational) and talking about the need for learning. On this topic, a great read is Scott Young's "Ultralearning" https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/. Well-researched, practical and the author has been successful following his own advice. Highly recommend.

The logical follow-up to the famous Scott Young MIT Challenge (https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/mit-challenge-2/) - actually get a degree in a year.

Excellent resource with many study tips. As a high school student, it's hard to balance school, leisure, and code, and any sort of advice is appreciated. In addition, I've found Cal Newport's blog both inspiring and also interesting, as he focuses on "hacks" to get higher quality studying for your time ("more bang for your buck") Edit: Cal Newport's blog: http://calnewport.com/blog/ Edit 2: Another one of my sources of study inspiration is the MIT Challenge[1] by Scott H. Young. Not only does he finish an entire MIT CS undergrad curriculum, but does so in 1/4 the time, something that I wish to emulate once life permits. [1]: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/mit-challenge-2/

> To be creative, you need to recognize those barely formed thoughts [...] And if they seem important enough to be worth pursuing, you construct a creative cocoon around them This seems really close to the standard creativity advice, to write down ideas before discarding them: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2008/03/05/how-to-speed-up-highly-cre… https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/22/will-self-rules-for-writ…

An great article on exactly this issue: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2010/12/14/persist-without-praise/

There are few choices and/or some combination of the following: (1) Start committing to Github daily. Make your own project and just go with it until you it's finished and learn what you need too. My example project: http://austingwalters.com/openbkz/ (2) You can go through online courses in an attempt to learn more and become an expert, many courses are online. You could also start following blogs, read papers and replicate results. If you are interested in maximizing learning: http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ (3) The past month I have been writing a blog a day, it increased my productivity and forced me to really master topics: My explanation on blogging: http://austingwalters.com/learning-through-blogging/ I recommend blogging, videos, or writing stuff down for "teaching" others because it really helps you master a subject and helps you think of ways to use those concepts.

Scott Young, a blogger, did this (http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/mit-challenge/), but not to make himself more attractive to potential employers. He covered the equivalent of a CS degree at MIT in one year, where "covered" means passing. Highly recommend reading about it and watching a few progress videos to get his method down.

In addition to all the great advice here, if you want a bit of a more structured approach, check out Scott Young's MIT challenge: http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/mit-challenge/

There was effectively nothing about linear algebra on that page. After some link followings, it appears that http://www.scotthyoung.com/mit/1806-exam.pdf is the exam which the student was happy with (having done worse on the first version). The final score appears to be 66 out of 100. Based on that test, I think the title is link-bait as it isn't "mastering linear algebra" but "passing an introductory algebra course."

I've had some pretty good results with Scott Young's ebook and blog in general: http://www.scotthyoung.com (ebook is on the side of the page, can't find a direct link to it).

> Who is this? Brilliantly gifted high school student it turns out. > https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2023/02/21/diego-vera-mit-challenge-m… > Interviewer: Tell me a bit about your life situation at the time. Were you working on the project full-time? What did you do for funds? > Diego: The year COVID hit was the most transformative year of my life. I was 15 at the time. A combination of both personal circumstances along with isolation gave me so much clarity—I transformed 180 degrees. During this time, I really got into self-improvement and started working out, meditating, reading, taking cold showers etc. Personally, I did some of what he did when I was his age, but not to the same extent and I mostly decided to chill out and enjoy college. At that age it's really risky to do. Really hard to go to college and sit in classes for 4 years if you already know everything. I guess you could go straight to grad school or industry, but you miss out on a lot of the social maturity and friendships you develop in college. Learning all this is almost a curse; he will always, in some sense, be alone in his newfound abilities. (Sorry for the edits. Done editing before any child comments.)

excerpt from the book Ultralearning by Scott Youn — https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/. "Eric Barone had just graduated from the University of Washington Tacoma with a degree in computer science when he thought, Now’s my chance. He had decided that he wanted to make his own video games and that now, before he got comfortable in a salaried programming job, was his opportunity to do something about it. He already had his inspiration. He wanted his game to pay homage to Harvest Moon, a charming Japanese series of games in which the player must build a successful farm: grow crops, raise animals, explore the countryside, and form relationships with other villagers. “I loved that game,” he said about his childhood experience with the title. “But it could have been so much better.” He knew that if he didn’t follow through with his own vision, that improved version would never be a reality. Developing a commercially successful video game isn’t easy. AAA game companies budget hundreds of millions of dollars and employ thousands of people on their top titles. The talent required is similarly broad. Game development requires programming, visual art, musical composition, story writing, game design, and dozens more skills, depending on the genre and style of game developed. The breadth of skills required makes game development much harder for smaller teams than other art forms such as music, writing, or visual arts. Even highly talented independent game developers…

Scott H Young a writer, programmer, traveler and avid reader of interesting things. For the last ten years he's been experimenting to find out how to learn and think better. Today he swings by the show and talks to us about how we can master hard skills faster! QUOTES "The way that mental models become useful is when you really spent a lot of time thinking about them, not when you just heard their name and kind of written them down and understood a few sentences." [00:13:54] "There is a certain type of person, I guess you could say that like they do need to stop reading, they need to actually start just taking action on things and implementing things." [00:24:23] "The possibilities of learning are a lot more vast than you've maybe previously considered." [01:02:17] CONNECT WITH SCOTT Website: https://www.scotthyoung.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/scotthyoung/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorScottYoung/ SHOW NOTES [00:03:30] The struggles on the path to becoming an ultralearner [00:06:22] The pitfalls of motivation [00:13:18] The benefits and limits of mental models [00:16:32] The difference between knowing the name of a thing and knowing the thing [00:23:33] Is reading making you stupid? [00:26:23] The danger of learning theories and not applying them [00:27:37] You need to do more than just homework [00:29:27] What to do when you’re stunned into inaction [00:33:36] Luck to destiny [00:40:27] How can we use ultralearning to accelerate,…

Another post of these "I read N times faster than the rest and still remember >= 90% of it" high-achievers ;) (no hard feelings). There's ample evidence that such kinds of speeds are not generally possible with every kind of book. See e.g. https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2015/01/19/speed-reading-redo/ I did take speed reading courses myself. Sure, it helps you speed-read, skimming over sections that seem unfamiliar, and detect when you need to slow down, because the subject matter becomes too unfamiliar/new. I've also had the impression that retention improves a bit after the couple of training days - at least that's what the workshop instructor makes you believe (it's their job to sell success and good feelings so that you recommend the course to your peers). In the end, I highly doubt that anyone who claims to have such high speeds is sincere. The simple fact is that marking text with a highlighter, making notes (with a pen) and thinking about the content (do you?) takes time. If you accounted for that and took the average, you'd get lower numbers. And that is fine.

Have you come across Scott Young's feat? http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/mit-challenge/ I believe in the real world, you are best represented by a body of work and/or the ability to demonstrate that you are capable of tackling the problems associated with the job in which you are considering. The world of information technologies is vast. There are computer scientists, software engineers, data scientists, test engineers, and many more. It'd be best if you could narrow down what it is that you're interested in working on. I think a degree in computer science gives you a phenomenal foundation for any of the above, but it doesn't make you immediately in demand, particularly if you're missing a body of work. I am a software engineer without a CS degree, but I've studied algorithms, some design patterns, and some math relevant to my areas of expertise. That's my two cents, but I'm sure other people have some useful ideas as well. :)

Ok, the knack really seems to be work smarter, not harder. I haven't got it down to pat entirely, but I'm getting there. If you have to work hard till 4 am to get school work done, you have a problem. You can group the problems though. 1. Wrong work Odds are you do some work that feels like you're working hard but won't get you anywhere. I had a knack for finding those and working myself stupid over them. "Biology poster? Museum Exhibit it is". Whilst that kind of work can teach you something, don't fret it, and prioritize. 2.Too much work. Don't follow in my footsteps and become an academic masochist. As said above, prioritize and cut things that aren't means to an end/enjoyable. Working on an important academic project you enjoy? Bullseye, it stays. Studying for a major exam that you require for graduation but hate? Dispatch it cleanly and quickly. There's techniques for that. Jamming on the guitar with friends? Sure, you have to relax after all. Working on a worthless elective class you hate? Do yourself a favor and chop it. 3. Handling work the wrong way I'm down to 2 hours study for a 1 hour lecture (I think you can go lower), but I have friends who spend 5 on the same thing and grasp less. Is it because my friends are stupid? Hopefully not. But they tackle it the wrong way. Efficiency whilst studying will help you cut a lot of time off. Also, understand that we run on cycles. Sleep/Wake, Work/Rest, etc. Every project I did where I tried fighting that fact…

I also struggled at first semester in college (I'm in my 3rd year now) with math (particularly Calculus) and found after my first semester it was due to a gap in my knowledge. I did not have a solid enough understanding of trig or high level algebra to calculate or manipulate equations expected of me so I would bomb all the exams. If you can't fully understand low level concepts how can you even expect to even grasp the broader view? It's like trying to explain multiplication to someone who has no concept of addition. To understand a topic you must also understand all the sub-topics that make it up, and once you grasp all the moving parts a problem by nature become much more intuitive to you. This also includes math equations, if you are expected to know an equation dont JUST memorize it but instead understand why its necessary, how to derive it, and when you can and can't use it. You'll be able to look at an equation/function/program and pull things out automatically just by looking at it that may have taken some time and work to conclude before. This is very similar to Scott Young's learning ideology that I also recommend reading up on. [1] Therefore after that semester I took some time and reviewed my algebra and basically re-learned trig from the ground up (it was very weak). Calc and Calc2 came a lot easier to me after this. In college you must continually fill these gaps in your knowledge as every professor is different and has different expectations in student's…

Cal Newport here points to the example of Scott Young, so then I was curious to look up Scott Young and to figure out where he went to university. He writes, "Popular discussion asks whether college is worth the money and time. I can’t say for sure. I went to a mid-tier, public Canadian university, with tuition around $5000 per year and leaving with no student debt, so my experience may be atypical." http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/tag/university/ I can't say whether or not his study strategies would work as well at a university that is not a "mid-tier, public Canadian university," or whether a student might have to study a lot harder at, say, MIT or the Indian Institute of Technology. Indeed, especially not knowing the exact name of the university from what I have looked up thus far, I have trouble knowing what the admission requirements are at Scott Young's university. I have to fully agree with Scott Young's advice, "Befriend Exchange Students." That's a great way to learn about the world before accumulating enough money to travel widely. A question for Cal Newport: how do we know that Scott Young is "one of the world’s most efficient studiers" if we don't know how challenging the courses are at his university? After edit: I see that Young writes, "This is perhaps my only regret in university is that I weighed interest too much over challenge in selecting my major." http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/tag/university/ Maybe some people who take more challenging majors…

As I understand it, that's more or less what Benjamin Franklin says he did to become a better writer. https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2017/10/02/how-ben-franklin-learned-t…

> I ended up with like 2 or 3 out of 10 complete proofs and the rest half finished on the final exam because I had the right starting points, but not enough practice using what I knew in unexpected ways. I feel ya. I memorised definitions for my algorithms course as well and also experienced diminishing rewards of using SRS flashcards (especially when the conceptual questions get more novel). Like what you say, we have to practice using the factual knowledge enough by writing proofs. The next generation of flashcards would probably use AI to generate concise questions on writing proofs. [1] A Little Randomness May Not Be Enough - https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2014/11/07/srs-for-concepts/ Thank you for sharing your experiences!

Related: "Do the Real Thing" by Scott Young (2020): https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2020/05/04/do-the-real-thing/