Free Online Courses

So apparently Stanford decided to add a bunch of courses I would've wanted to take if I went there for grad school to their free online course offering for next year (Jan/Feb 2012).

Natural Language Processing @ nlp-class.org
Software Engineering for SAAS @ saas-class.org
Game Theory @ game-theory-class.org
Probabilistic Graphical Models @ pgm-class.org
Machine Learning @ jan2012.ml-class.org (Same class as current ml-class.org)
Computer Security @ security-class.org
Information Theory @ infotheory-class.org

plus Anatomy and then a few other courses I'm not as interested in. I definitely wouldn't be able to keep up with all of these though. I already gave up trying to keep up with two courses this quarter, although I'm sort of following along at my own sluggish pace anyway. Sigh.

I went ahead and signed up for all of them anyway just for the heck of it since I'd probably want to watch the lectures at least. With all of these courses being put up for free online now I'm starting to wonder if I really want to go to grad school anyway... although granted, as far as ml-class this fall started off, they're probably going to be a bit dumbed down compared to the actual on-campus class. We shall see.

So according to the Principles of Neural Science, 4th edition, ion channels = resistors, concentration gradients = voltage sources, membranes/lipid bilayers = parallel plate capacitors, and the potential change across a membrane after a current pulse = IR(1-e^(-t/tau)) where tau = the time constant RC.

So basically, neurons = RC circuits. MIND BLOWN.

Interests.

Studying for finals made me think about the subjects I still find particularly interesting. I used to be one of those who wanted to take classes because "EVERYTHING is interesting!"... and then life happened. Well, let's see.

Computer science - artificial intelligence, computability+complexity, programming languages, operating systems, algorithms, networks. basically all the classes I took/am going to take at Berkeley minus networks. some aspects of architecture, but less in the actual design (after CS150 I'm fine with just taking it for granted) and more in how it affects the way I code.

also on a more high level end, looking more into website development, past the html/css stuff. learning how the stuff I learned in cs fits into it was pretty great - seeing programming language conventions come up when making websites (databases, javascript/php/mysql, ruby on rails, server/client interactions) gets me pretty excited.

if I go to grad school in the future - machine learning? more advanced ai stuff? probably. I have a hard time picturing what I'd find interesting past undergrad level, strangely... although it's partly biased by me being not so much into research. Ultimately I just want to learn to be a better programmer.

Electrical Engineering (the other half of my major) - signal processing, systems - if I had time I'd look more into feedback control systems and dynamical systems.

Bio - NEUROSCIENCE! mainly. and stuff related to it, like cognitive neuroscience (which is a psych topic, but whatever). Brains are cool.

Languages - Japanese currently. Indonesian in the future. I actually wouldn't mind brushing up on Spanish, although I still feel aversive to it in the classroom... it's so much better in real life. And then maybe Chinese. Might look more into linguistics.

Math - intending to actually learn the stuff in my linear algebra and probability textbooks over break. I regret dropping those classes, even though I had no time for them... sometimes I kinda wished I dropped a cs class I wasn't as interested in instead. But past those... abstract algebra and stochastic processes?

English - I just like reading novels. mostly early 20th century stuff, American/English with a bit of Slavic and hopefully more Japanese in the future. Looking into more short stories also. Right now, H. P. Lovecraft.

History - haven't actually studied it since high school, but my range of nonfiction reading would history related. main focus on Biblical (Kingdom of Israel through first century Christianity), Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and 20th century American (in the past it was more pioneer/gold rush/Civil War).

Film - Old movies. Lots of stuff to watch from the They Shoot Pictures list still. Kinda tend to side with the film critics(read: if they say it's good, it's probably good), and I like reading film analyses a lot. And anything with Jimmy Stewart. Thinking about auditing Film 50 sometimes depending on what they show next semester.

Religion - Perspectives has helped here. Christianity obviously, but within it I find Orthodox pretty interesting. Islam, Buddhism, next semester Hinduism?

Ok, so this does seem like a lot still. But it used to be a lot bigger. I guess it's more about finding depth within each topic... and I can't really eliminate an entire category from these left.

And my non-academic interests...

Video Games!: In the past this was mainly JRPGS(Chrono, FF, KH), but more recently shifted to adventure games (The Longest Journey, Tex Murphy, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Ace Attorney, Broken Sword, Monkey Island, Sam and Max... the classics) with a bit of WRPG(Planescape, possibly Mass Effect), and random stuff that gets popular during Steam/GoG sales (Evil Genius, Left4Dead). Looking to more indie stuff also (Fedora Spade, Immortal Defense...).

As far as JRPGs go, right now it's Tales. and Mother 3. I'm kinda losing the patience to play them now and they're pretty big time sinks, moreso than the other stuff I play now.

But more seriously - game criticism. Development. Design. Story-telling, art and aesthetics. I like reading articles on this kind of stuff.

Manga - Mainly seinen stuff + One Piece. Looking for more stuff that'd be comparable to literature for books - which tends to lead to the more obscure titles in manga.

Tennis - I haven't played in ages, but I am craving it one of these days.

Swing - Next semester...

Scheduling

Spring semester class schedule is out!

I need to stop looking up classes I'm never going to take.

Tentative schedule:
CS 164 - Programming Languages and Compilers
CS 194 - Advanced Topics in Artificial Intelligence
MCB C160 - Intro to Neurobiology (I miss bio so much.)
Japanese 1B - more Japanese!!

Back up classes:
CS 172 - Computability and Complexity
CS 194 - Algorithms in Computational Biology
CS 186 - Databases

I also realized that I miss watching movies. Soon.

List

Just to get this out of the way so I stop thinking about it for the rest of the semester:

Next semester (tentative):
CS 164 - Programming Languages and Compilers
CS 172 - Computability and Complexity
MCB C160 - Intro to Neurobiology
Japanese 1B - Elementary Japanese

Classes I'd consider if I had an extra semester:
CS 186 - Databases
Stat 134 - Probability
Math 113 - Abstract Algebra
MCB 150 - Molecular Immunology
Psych C127 - Cognitive Neuroscience
Ling 100 - Intro to Linguistic Science
Japanese 10A - Intermediate Japanese

What I'd most likely take if I did have an extra semester:
CS 186
Math 113
Psych C127 or MCB 150 if C127 isn't offered again like it wasn't last semester
Japanese 10A

...I don't want to graduate yet. x_x

All of a sudden

I'm so over this semester. -_-

edit: It occurred to me that we didn't get to Bode plots in EE120. Those were my favorite part of EE40 :/.

I don't know if this is the mark of me going crazy from midterms studying, but all of a sudden I find digital systems design fascinating. Hurray for latches and pipelining and configurable logic blocks!

I am enjoying summer school considerably more than regular school at the moment... (yes, even circuits) but that might just be because I'm actually get normal sleep now. not being sleep deprived during class means I can actually pay attention to what's going on during class! YES!

also, music is one of the funnest classes I've ever taken at berkeley, and yes it is a summer class. but I also enjoy singing a lot. canons are really fun.

on another note I'm thinking about writing about the stuff we cover in bible study just to keep note of where things are going. some of the stuff we've talked about in the last few days has been pretty interesting (least to me... it depends on the perspective you approach it from) and insightful, and considering how often I mix up my notes all over the place I think it'd be better just to keep track of them here. but we'll see how that goes.

and on a third note, I'm a signature away from EECS. :)