Goals and offerings of this blog
Learn how this place came to be, what my goals are, and what I can offer you.
The Goal:
This blog is for people who wish to learn how to be competent in mathematics and AI research without going to an academic institution.
I put together a guide here:
https://github.com/Simon-Holloway/Full_Math_CS_Guide
Which goes over the fundamental topics in mathematics and computer science, even more it should also help practically by offering the best resources to learn from (that I could find. This is a living document and will be changed every so often as I find new resources to learn from or think it should be structured in a different way to help achieve the goal listed above. All resources will be put that I think will help autodidacts achieve competency.
How did this blog come about? Why this goal? And why not go to college?
I started this guide after trying to learn machine learning for a couple of months, finally understanding I couldn't just learn higher level math and coding all at once and realizing I needed a foundation of math and programming. I looked around for quite a while but what I found I didn’t really like, either courses were too shallow only giving a very bare bones approach to subjects or I felt like they were too inefficient; they got you understanding but took three times too long to do it.
I chose this goal of making a foundation for myself through this guide because I wanted to learn math and computer science and not go through the long college process to do it. I think AI is one of the biggest / most interesting problems there is to work on in our modern era, and I would like to be a part of it. I like the freedom and flexibility to study the amount I want with a time-frame that works for me outside of the rigid timeline of college, but I understand self motivation and a more isolated environment is a big drawback of not going to college. Another big part of college is the degree, which is a sign that you are qualified to do what degree says you can. While there are some professions where a degree is vital, I don’t see that in the programming space, it is very helpful but not vital. I will attempt to circumvent the degree process by creating projects and research that are good enough to get hired without a degree.
What can I offer you?
What I will attempt to deliver:
Good resources to learn from
Book reviews when I finish them
Mind map at the end of book reviews for intuition on the connectivity of math subjects
Also color coded by what I think is most important and what I use most often.
Community of learning
I will not be able to answer all your questions, so I want to have a community that helps each other come to conceptual and sometimes technical understandings together. I will also put up posts where you can recommend resources be added.
Methodical thoughts on research down the road.
Eventually I want to start doing and writing research papers. I will come out with both the paper and a post for each paper explaining why I chose that problem, what I did during my research, what setbacks were and any useful advice I found along the way.
Timeline analysis of a resource
How long does it take to get through this book? If it takes long does the content make up for it?
What I will try to avoid
Derivative work.
Especially for research, but I want to keep pushing into new ground rather than going over old topics. Good for learning, but I want to be in the present.
Confusing or unhelpful guides, research, or books.
Resource overload
I think having too many options, when each option takes an exorbitant amount of time and little justification to those options is given, is very unhelpful and I sadly see that a lot while looking for learning resources.
A bad community environment
What are the drawbacks of learning not in higher ed?
No hand holding
There are many things in math that are hard to understand and problems that are hard to solve. Usually professors can walk through practice problems. Books try but do less well I have found. So you can get stuck sometimes where more guidance would be helpful. There are places online to help you but they aren't as fast to get back to you.
Less non academic guidance
What is important to study? Where is the field going? How do you make connections in the field? Where is all the work taking place? I will try to help with this, but since I am an outsider for now I will be finding out with you. The guide at least tries to answer the first question.
No physical community
It's sometimes nice to all work in a shared environment and get to know your peers for if you have questions. We don’t have that but hopefully the comments will be helpful
Will it work?
Maybe, that's the fun of it all.
Blog Objectives
At the time of writing this (10/26/21), my goals are:
Every 2 / 3 months come out with a new book(s) review.
Once a month, post interesting links to articles I found interesting and or helpful for learners.
Read and recreate / produce research papers by the end of 2022.
Since college degrees usually take 4 years, in 4 years( May 2025), I will write my reflection of how I think this went and my counterfactual of if I went to college.