Hi everyone, Wyatt Arent here. When this article was proposed, it was unexpected and I'm still humbled. It's a privilege to have an opportunity to inspire and help as much as I can. Thanks for your time, keep kicking ass, here's to continued growth and evolution of us all
Since you successfully passed the Google interview, can you comment on how much the OCW content prepared you for it? Or did you have to supplement with other algorithm books? I believe many people would find your self-taught-no-CS-degree experience very interesting.
I am also working through MIT OCW classes, currently on 6.0001 (Introduction to CS using Python).
Just a few questions:
- What specific courses did you take?
- Did you complete the psets and quizzes / exams to test what you learned?
- Did you buy, rent, or download the suggested books?
- Did you listen to all the lectures or skip around? How about recitations (where available)?
IMHO, curiosity and desire to learn form the basis of any good technologist career. And arguably they are very important for a happy and fulfilled life. I applaud your tenacity.
You're story is inspiring of course and I have 2 questions if I may. I've had similar issues although I have a lot of support; mostly chronic un(der)employment; substance abuse and briefly was quasi-homeless. I finally have a few waiter & landscaping gigs and a roof so def lucky AF, but now that I've ticked off the bottom few runs on Maslow's heirarchy I wou
I think a remarkable part of this that no one has mentioned is that the article mentioned you struggled with homelessness at least at one point. Can you talk more about your experience being homeless? Did you have difficulties finding the ability to get your basic needs met while studying? How did you support yourself? What did you take away from the experience?
Wanted to know how long it usually takes you to get through a typical CS/Math course and how much time you spend on it a week?
Also how long does it take for you to get through the readings? Some of those books you mentioned are lengthy, especially Mathematics for Computer Science!
I just don't understand why we need to donate to OCW. Why can't MIT with its mega endowment fund OCW? Why do ordinary people need to donate to these mega institutions to fund things that mega endowed entities (the government, these mega universities) should be paying for. It's not like OWC is Wikipedia. OCW is associated with MIT. Seems unfair to crowdfund something and then let MIT get the brand recognition. Especially since MIT is so rich.
If someone can use OCW to advance their knowledge and opportunity in society, and then later in their career voluntarily contribute back something, that is a good model for some people.
Contrast this with the government's role in creating a vocational structure that saddles students with enormous debt right at the start of their working life. Also, the arguably opportunistic behavior of the lending market and universities and the devaluing of education via diploma mills.
I believe a lot of endowments have only specific uses. You can't just spend as much as you want on whatever you want. It also gets buy-in from the community. Even if you can afford to run something for free, accepting donations is a great way to measure your impact.
True. I agree with you for the most part, but we can't forget that this OCW thing is something MIT never had to do. It's probably also quite a money pit, that is besides the donations, which might make adminstrators wonder why they do OCW if it's not atleast self sufficient.
Likewise, OCW is one of the key learning I ever had in my career. Resource crunch and lack of good professor were not a problem with the internet and online course. I took OCW algorithms and data structure course and I still remember all the data structures and algorithms being taught in the course.
Not just OCW , I find Stanford edu , Berkeley, coursera and udacity really helpful. Thank you to everyone involved in making online coursework accessible. I feel indebted and thankful to this community.
6.042J (Math for CS) is pretty challenging. Anyone who worked through it have any tips when you're stuck? Maybe slightly easier problems to supplement with for practice?
Quick question: as an "new-grad" applicant with two internships AND an internal referral, my application to Google was categorically rejected on the basis that they are "no longer hiring fresh undergraduates for the Software Engineer position". No initial phone screen, just an automatic email.
Given that this self-taught dev was given an interview, would I be better off applying without listing my CS degree and just highlight professional experience, GitHib, etc and say I am "self-taught"?
Maybe they have a quota of new undergrad from a specific school per year (If they assume that every school they go to has at least X% of candidates) or an overall quota.
"no longer hiring fresh undergraduates for the Software Engineer position" might only be for your school for this year.
Also most companies would consider "fresh undergraduates" people graduating soon or who graduated less than 12 months ago so you still have time.
In general you don't want to spam a company for the same position, it's good to wait for 8-12 months before re-applying, so if your desired position usually accept fresh new-grad, you might want to retry before [your graduation date + 12 months] but after at least ~8 months.
> Given that this self-taught dev was given an interview
He isn't a fresh undegraduate, check out his linkedin, he seem to have around 2 years of Dev experience, and 3 of freelance.
So he probably didn't fall in the "new grad" track.
Ahhh, makes perfect sense. Someone who has the wherewithal to grind through self study is probably a pretty ideal engineer to hire, even if their education was a bit substandard. It's pretty easy to pick up in an interview if they actually learned the academic bits.
University CS courses tend to be heavy on varyingly useful theory, light on practical knowledge. Which, fine, that's like most university degrees even in the most vocational of fields.
So while this dude's "degree" might be substandard (MIT-OCW vs. MIT-MIT), I'd argue their education – at least in terms of applicability and self-direction – is equal, if not superior.
It's significantly strong signal for conscientiousness, which from my understanding is highly correlated w/ certain cognitive attributes; this in combination w/ certain low agreeableness (not being influenced by the "traditional family") and apparent intellectual openness -- is good enough bet for me :)
MIT OCW has been incredible for me as well, but I always get stuck on a concept or wish I was in a structured setting. Any tools or tips that helped you along the way?
I was thinking of starting some live study circles for the next topic.
I think it means a conservative family, which not only does not nurture the apparent aptitude of the kid for programming, but maybe also actively prevents it from any further development; due various reasons, but probably mostly, because of their incoherent belief systems.
I've personally had been through something similar, albeit not in such radical way. My parents bought me the eastern block's Apple II clone when I was at age of 8, but despite that, later in my teenage years I had to constantly overcome various forms of pressure – i.e. this computer won't make your living when you grow up, so stop f*cking around and get more interested in your high school material, because as it goes it seems you won't be even able to finish it. We're kind of joking now w/ my parents around that, but boy - it was no fun back then.
They definitely still do have videos. I use OCW quite a bit. Producing the videos, formatting, distributing, and hosting them is more expensive then going without them so sometimes they go without them.
[+] [-] warent|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasode|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leekh|8 years ago|reply
When you got blocked or felt like you hit a wall, what did you do?
[+] [-] 40acres|8 years ago|reply
I am also working through MIT OCW classes, currently on 6.0001 (Introduction to CS using Python).
Just a few questions: - What specific courses did you take? - Did you complete the psets and quizzes / exams to test what you learned? - Did you buy, rent, or download the suggested books? - Did you listen to all the lectures or skip around? How about recitations (where available)?
[+] [-] yawz|8 years ago|reply
IMHO, curiosity and desire to learn form the basis of any good technologist career. And arguably they are very important for a happy and fulfilled life. I applaud your tenacity.
[+] [-] wand3r|8 years ago|reply
You're story is inspiring of course and I have 2 questions if I may. I've had similar issues although I have a lot of support; mostly chronic un(der)employment; substance abuse and briefly was quasi-homeless. I finally have a few waiter & landscaping gigs and a roof so def lucky AF, but now that I've ticked off the bottom few runs on Maslow's heirarchy I wou
[+] [-] mowenz|8 years ago|reply
I think a remarkable part of this that no one has mentioned is that the article mentioned you struggled with homelessness at least at one point. Can you talk more about your experience being homeless? Did you have difficulties finding the ability to get your basic needs met while studying? How did you support yourself? What did you take away from the experience?
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Dangeranger|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cs-student|8 years ago|reply
Wanted to know how long it usually takes you to get through a typical CS/Math course and how much time you spend on it a week?
Also how long does it take for you to get through the readings? Some of those books you mentioned are lengthy, especially Mathematics for Computer Science!
Thanks!
[+] [-] Danihan|8 years ago|reply
For instance, was there whiteboard coding?
What position were you hired for at Google?
[+] [-] linkmotif|8 years ago|reply
I just don't understand why we need to donate to OCW. Why can't MIT with its mega endowment fund OCW? Why do ordinary people need to donate to these mega institutions to fund things that mega endowed entities (the government, these mega universities) should be paying for. It's not like OWC is Wikipedia. OCW is associated with MIT. Seems unfair to crowdfund something and then let MIT get the brand recognition. Especially since MIT is so rich.
[+] [-] julian_1|8 years ago|reply
If someone can use OCW to advance their knowledge and opportunity in society, and then later in their career voluntarily contribute back something, that is a good model for some people.
Contrast this with the government's role in creating a vocational structure that saddles students with enormous debt right at the start of their working life. Also, the arguably opportunistic behavior of the lending market and universities and the devaluing of education via diploma mills.
[+] [-] enknamel|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnsonjo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PrimHelios|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JackFr|8 years ago|reply
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/06/07/mit-receives-mi...
$13.2 billion dollar endowment.
Operating budget of $3.3 billion dollars.
$1.6 billion dollars in sponsored research.
I think my wallet can safely stay in my pocket.
[+] [-] linkmotif|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dangeranger|8 years ago|reply
If you want to donate directly here is the link:
https://crowdfund.mit.edu/project/6629
[+] [-] linux_devil|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmay|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HiroshiSan|8 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.ca/Mathematical-Proofs-Transition-Advance...
[+] [-] ghost-monk|8 years ago|reply
Given that this self-taught dev was given an interview, would I be better off applying without listing my CS degree and just highlight professional experience, GitHib, etc and say I am "self-taught"?
[+] [-] vmarsy|8 years ago|reply
Maybe they have a quota of new undergrad from a specific school per year (If they assume that every school they go to has at least X% of candidates) or an overall quota.
"no longer hiring fresh undergraduates for the Software Engineer position" might only be for your school for this year.
Also most companies would consider "fresh undergraduates" people graduating soon or who graduated less than 12 months ago so you still have time.
In general you don't want to spam a company for the same position, it's good to wait for 8-12 months before re-applying, so if your desired position usually accept fresh new-grad, you might want to retry before [your graduation date + 12 months] but after at least ~8 months.
> Given that this self-taught dev was given an interview
He isn't a fresh undegraduate, check out his linkedin, he seem to have around 2 years of Dev experience, and 3 of freelance. So he probably didn't fall in the "new grad" track.
[+] [-] neivin|8 years ago|reply
Maybe you just didn't make the cut?
[+] [-] blazespin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LA_Banker|8 years ago|reply
So while this dude's "degree" might be substandard (MIT-OCW vs. MIT-MIT), I'd argue their education – at least in terms of applicability and self-direction – is equal, if not superior.
[+] [-] tracker1|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vldx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] imranq|8 years ago|reply
I was thinking of starting some live study circles for the next topic.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kelukelugames|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vldx|8 years ago|reply
I've personally had been through something similar, albeit not in such radical way. My parents bought me the eastern block's Apple II clone when I was at age of 8, but despite that, later in my teenage years I had to constantly overcome various forms of pressure – i.e. this computer won't make your living when you grow up, so stop f*cking around and get more interested in your high school material, because as it goes it seems you won't be even able to finish it. We're kind of joking now w/ my parents around that, but boy - it was no fun back then.
[+] [-] olleromam91|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lnanek2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnsonjo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|8 years ago|reply
Some courses have video lectures, some do not. OCW varies in what resources are available from course to course.
[+] [-] hagakure0c|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icantdrive55|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]