School Days . . .
Between a new low vehicle count of only 29, and a high of only 85 degrees, it was a really nice day.
I’ve decided to go back to school. And I’ve been accepted to Harvard. Well, HarvardX anyway, which is Harvard’s online presence.
Over the last few years I’ve seen articles and ads about Khan Academy and edX, Both offer free online courses on hundreds of subjects, pretty much on anything you can think of.
Khan Academy seems to concentrate on general subjects, like Chemistry, Biology, or Electrical Engineering, using their own class materials. They even have math classes for K – 8th grade, that are used by many homeschoolers. And another focus is on test prep for SAT, MCAT, GMAT, and more.
But edX offers actual specific classes from major universities around the country, like MIT, Harvard, UT, and many others. And again, they’re all free. The only possible charge is if you want an actual Verified Certificate or Diploma, which runs about $100.
edX offers two main types of courses, scheduled and self-paced. Scheduled is just like any college course, with a definite start date, and assignments due at a definite time. Self-paced are just that. You can start anytime and work at your own pace. In fact edX lists over 300 self-paced courses.
I thought I’d start off with Introduction to Computer Science, a course given, as I said by Harvard. I figure it would be interesting to get a more recent overview of the subject, since the last time I took a Intro Computer class was 1973, when Jan and I were both back in college.
Jan had to take the Intro class as part of her Medical Records degree curriculum and was worried about it. I had an open period at the same time so I signed up too. We did our programming assignments on an IBM 1170 at the school using punch cards.
My previous Intro class had been in 1966 at Vanderbilt University on a IBM 360 that took up a whole floor of the Science Building, again using punch cards and Fortran IV. But my first actual programming was on a Geniac analog computer that I got for Christmas in 1958 when I was 10.
If you’re anywhere near my age (i.e. ancient) you probably remember ads in magazines like this one
The actual computer looked like this – a Masonite board with six Masonite wheels, and a lot of jumper wires, as well as batteries, light bulbs, and a buzzer.
You wired it up using the jumper wires, and then you could solve simple math problems, guess you age problems, and many others. For me the best thing was that it taught you to logically break a problem down in small pieces and then construct a program to solve it.
At 10 I was already into shortwave radio, collecting SWL cards from all around the world, and studying for my ham radio license, so the Geniac was just another step.
Anyway, after the Intro course, I want to check out some of the newer languages that have come along in the last few years, like C++, C#, and Linux. I programmed in Unix at NASA,, but Linux is a newer version. Then after that, probably Java and Ruby.
Who knows?
For dinner tonight we had our leftover Blue Moon BBQ from yesterday. Since Jan had also fixed us a dessert we found we had leftover leftovers, so we have another meal for tomorrow too.
Tomorrow I’ll put in another call to Wilson about my DBPro cell phone amplifier, and see if I can get it working.
Thought for the Day:
What should you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant? – George Carlin
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