Fundamentals of Neuroscience from Harvard EdX | Hacker News Reader

Fundamentals of Neuroscience from Harvard EdX

mcb80x.org

25 pointsomarelamri12 comments

I took this course (part 1 of 3) last year and passed it with about 90%. It left me with a question in the back of my mind about whether this is a very watered down version of the actual Harvard course (I hope it isn't) or if they're just that good at teaching it. Because there is never a stumbling in understanding something, the course just flows naturally from one lecture to another and you get immersed into it all the way through. If I recall correctly I saw all the lectures during 1 or 2 evenings and did the final exam a week or so later and surprisingly the material was retained in my head.

What did you learn out of it?

Part 1 is mostly about permeability of the neuronal cell membrane to the various ions, the equation that governs this (the Nernst equation), and the way that the concentrations and charge of these ions interplay to create a neural impulse, further amplified by the myelin sheath

speaking from some experience in putting together and running a mooc class (as well as non-mooc classes), they are very watered down versions of their original courses. after a lot of soul-searching, I think that the world is better for having these classes, but I can't imagine how they could replace or supplant the previous model. from my perspective, the things that add the most value to a college class, in educational value, inherently do not scale.

The one big positive side to MOOCs is that they offer breadth (even if it's somewhat watered down). My own real life academic curriculum is 90% pure math, with programming and theoretical physics covering the other 10%, and having a wide range of interesting and diverse MOOCs lets you see what else is out there :)

true! because the lectures are delivered asynchronously you can survey a broad amount of material. again, I definitely think that the world is a better place for having available courseware, but you shouldn't let the brand name of the professors institution (harvard, MIT, stanford, etc) fool you - it is still watered down. it has to be.

You can do a MOOC with very little watering down. Yaser Abu-Mostafa's "Learning From Data" from Caltech in an example. Here's an article written by Abu-Mostafa about this [1].

[1] https://www.class-central.com/report/caltech-mooc-flipped-cl...

I wish they wouldn't say that it's free. It's not free if you have to hand over a bunch of your information in order to see the content.

Is it worth paying money to get certified on an online course ? Do employers consider it?

I was thinking of paying for the Data Science course.

I can't imagine a situation where taking a MMOC would positively impact an employer's thoughts about someone, at least not in a meaningful way (I'm sure it shows some general level of motivation).

IMO for these things it's better to view them purely as self enrichment

Are these people trying to sell me something? Weird aesthetic for an online course outline.

Yes, these people are trying to sell you their version of knowledge about neuroscience (nothing negative about that). There are too many online courses now and course creators have to compete for student's time and attention. And this is an absolutely wonderful development.

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