The part about the Coursera course's steep learning curve feels so familiar. I'm doing the course as well, but it's pretty tough for me. I suck at maths and I don't know Octave or Python. It's a very good course though, I still try to watch some lessons every week, but I'm way behind schedule.

I'm impressed by the author's ability to recognize his own failure in completing a course, because for me it often just keeps dragging on while I still think "some day I will finish it". I can't accept the fact that I just failed it. Sometimes I wish I was still in university, being able to dedicate 40 hours per week to just learning this kind of stuff and having teachers around.