#120 overall
Introduction to Computational Thinking
MIT
4 recommenders · 4 threads · recommended in 3 years, 2020–2022 · score 3.6
An MIT course that teaches mathematics and science through computation using the Julia language, covering topics such as convolutions and simulations, with lectures and notebooks freely available. Instructors include MIT professors Alan Edelman and David Sanders, MIT researcher James Schloss, and educator Grant Sanderson.
Commenters call it a great course for hands-on computational mathematics and note that it is open to everyone and its course notebooks show Pluto.jl in action.
Mathematicsintermediatefreevideo lectures#julia#computational thinking#mathematics#simulation#edelman
Recommendations by year
20062026
computer science is an extremely broad area. Narrow it down, maybe?
1. Introduction to Computational Thinking at MIT was a great one.
2. Robert Ghrist has the best set of SV Calculus courses on Coursera.
3. Gilbert Strang's LA courses are the best.
4. For Algorithms course, I would recommend Sedgewick and Wayne's course on Coursera.
5. For PL course, go with the WashU course on Coursera.
6. For Machine Learning, you should start with Andrew Ng's Machine Learning.
7. Cryptography I, II by Dan Boneh is a great one.
8. Introduction to Programming with Python at MIT on edX is a good course. And so is CS50 by David J. Malan.
9. The nand2tetris course on Coursera.
These are some that I can vouch for. You did not mention your level or what topic you want to learn.
The best way is to do a google search for moocs, and try several of them out, and pick one with the teacher whose teaching style you like the most.
In MOOCs that are not mandated, the personality of the teacher matters a lot. In my opinion- it is the most important factor.
You should also look up courses where all materials are publicly available- tests, assignments, homework problems, etc. If some parts are not, you can always email a prof, and they will almost never turn you down.
Follow discussions on Reddit. Engage in discussions, too.
You should look up https://teachyourselfcs.com and check out the recorded courses there. Do the ones that you would like.
I know that this site mentions MIT's Introduction to Computational Thinking course, but the hyperlink doesn't send me there.
For those interested in seeing Pluto in action I highly recommend checking out the course notebooks here: https://computationalthinking.mit.edu/Spring21/
BTW, he's currently co-teaching a course on Julia with some really great lectures on computational thinking:
https://computationalthinking.mit.edu/Fall20/
He also had a nice video about epidemics/pandemics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs
All using manim for visualizations.
The course teaches through computation in Julia, 4 seemingly random submodules that are both mathematical and computational. The course information including the instructors (who are MIT professors Alan Edelman, David Sanders, MIT researcher James Schloss, and Youtube educator Grant Sanderson) is on the title URL. To get a flavor, check out the first lecture (after the introductions and installations lecture) on convolutions here: https://mitmath.github.io/18S191/Fall20/lecture2/
The instructors are all prolific open-source contributors and the course is definitely worth looking at, if you are interested in hands-on computations of cool and useful mathematics. It's also open to everyone!