MOOCs I Recommend And How to Study with Them

I’m pathologically unable to read textbooks (get bored too quickly) and my university doesn’t have too many good courses (I had 3 really great ones during my undergrad; 0 during my Master’s). So I ended up taking quite a bit of MOOCs over the years. Here are the ones I would definitely recommend:

Bio

• MITx Introduction to Biology
• MITx Molecular Biology. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.
• Harvardx Biochemistry
• MIT OCW Systems Biology

CS

• Stanford University Algorithms. Part 1. Part 2.

Physics

• MITx Mechanics. Kinematics and Dynamics, Momentum and Energy, Rotational Dynamics, Simple Harmonic Motion

History

• University of Virginia The Modern World (1760-). Part 1. Part 2.
• Emory University The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future
• Cornellx American Capitalism: A History

Econ

• Marginal Revolution University Principles of Micro
• Marginal Revolution University Principles of Macro
• Columbia University Economics of Money and Banking
• University of Michigan Model Thinking

How to study with MOOCs?

MOOCs are not a panacea. When you take a university course, you have:

• 2-3 hours a week of lectures
• 1-2 hours a week of seminars
• 1-2 hours a week of office hours
• exercises
• homework

Note that MOOCs don’t provide seminars and office hours, which are frequently even more important than the lectures themselves! When I try to self-study anything I get stuck on material all the time and when I took Calculus, Linear Algebra, Statistics, etc. in the university I visited office hours almost religiously.

What is the alternative to office hours and seminars? It seems that the only viable alternatives are

• a private tutor
• a friendly professor at a local university
• a friend whom it would not be too awkward to pester with questions

None of these are perfect.

Tricks

• to be able to quickly adjust the video speed I strongly recommend Video Speed Controller