Getting B.S. in C.S. 2.0
Some time ago I have posted a list of free courses that you can take online to have a degree equivalent to BS in computer science (the equivalence is still questionable1). The reason I made the list is because I was going through the same – I have a degree in Linguistics, and had to spend a lot of time taking online courses to get my MS in Computer Engineering.
I hope you will find it useful for your continuing education! :)))
Note that this is a general curriculum released by MIT and if you disagree with it – sorry, cannot do anything about it. Later on I will publish my own curriculum that I am currently using to get deeper into machine learning.
Online BS 2.0: MIT OCW
In the previous version, the list of all the MOOCs was all over the place, and some links were dead before I even started them. I have decided to regenerate the list using the curriculum and videos from MIT Open Courseware. If some courses are not found on OCW, I will try to find their equivalent on other University websites.
General Curriculum
I will not include any requirements posed by the institution itself, only the department – after all, no one cares if you took Abstract Art and Dog Ethics in college (you should though!).
Legend:
- 1 Year = 3 Trimesters
- 1 Trimester = 4 months
- 1 hour = 1 hour of work per week
General
Trimester 0 (Prerequisites)
I am assuming you know all of that already! :)
| Link and Code | Course Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| OCW 18.06 | 2Linear Algebra | 12 |
| OCW 18.03 | 2Differential Equations | 12 |
| OCW 6.042 | 2Mathematics for Computer Science | 12 |
| Total | 36 |
Trimester I
| Link and Code | Course Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| CS 50x | Intro to CS | 6 |
| OCW 6.01 | 3Robot Sensing, Software and Control | |
| OCW 6.02 | 3Communications Networks | 12 |
| MITx 6.041 | Introduction to Probability | 12 |
| Total | 30 |
Trimester II
| Link and Code | Course Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| OCW 6.004 | Computation Structures | 12 |
| OCW 6.006 | Introduction to Algorithms | 12 |
| OCW 6.031 | Elements of Software Construction | 12 |
| Total | 36 |
Trimester III
| Link and Code | Course Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| OCW 6.033 | Computer System Engineering | 12 |
| OCW 6.034 | 3Artificial Intelligence | |
| CS 229 | 3Introduction to Machine Learning | 12 |
| OCW 6.045 | 3Automata, Computability, and Complexity | |
| OCW 6.046 | 3Design and Analysis of Algorithms | 12 |
| Total | 36 |
Specialization
The last trimesters focus on specific topics, and you should choose at least two from the MIT website. The above list just gives you a bare minimum required to start writing good code.
The following show what I would pick
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
I would also include Coursera link to Andrew Ng’s class, but I promised I would stick to university links only
| Link and Code | Course Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| OCW 6.801 | Machine Vision | 12 |
| OCW 6.864 | Advanced Natural Language Processing | 12 |
| OCW 6.869 | 4Advances in Computer Vision | 12 |
| OCW 6.867 | Machine Learning | 12 |
| Total | 48 |
Other Specializations will come later :)
-
The degree that you get when paying full tuition is confirmed, and is definitely worth more. The only way it will be equivalent is if you go through all the online courses and ask some university to confirm your knowledge by testing you. ↩
-
This is mathematics course – you can skip it if you are sure you know it well ↩ ↩2 ↩3
-
I couldn’t find videos for this courses ↩
