Hello all,
My goal is to learn some basic math + programming skills as quickly as possible, so that I can read research papers without being tripped up by the math, and because they are by far my weakest skill area at the moment and feel like a bottleneck for me. My plan is to spend 15-25 hours a week on this for the next five months and experiment with what works best.
My background:
- Have not taken a math class since completing Calculus.
- 1 year of intro CS classes only covering C++
These are my current ideas on what I should learn:
- Programming
- Python
- Data Structures + Algorithms
- Machine Learning
- Math
- Statistics / Probability
- Linear Algebra
- Multivariable Calculus
My hypothesis on what would work fastest is to hire a tutor for each of these topics from Bountied Rationality and work through the most highly recommended textbook on each topic (I suspect this would work better for math than for programming). Other than that, the options I’m currently aware of for learning are taking lectures from Coursera, Codecademy, and various coding BootCamps.
My Current Questions:
- What textbooks would you recommend for these topics? (Right now my list is only “Linear Algebra Done Right”)
- What other ideas do folks have for learning these topics that I can experiment with?
- What other topics might I be overlooking?
- What other feedback might you have for me?
Thank you so much!
I've also been self-teaching myself similar topics. Reading books and working through the exercises works much better for me personally than watching videos. For Python, I recommend Think Python 2e, which is freely available here, and Charles Severance's Python for Everybody on FreeCodeCamp. For Machine Learning, the gold standard is An Introduction to Statistical Learning. The exercises are in R, but I think you can find Python versions somewhere on the internet.
For Statistics and Probability I used OpenIntro, but I've also got Pishro-Nik's Introduction to Probability, Statistics, and Random Processes on my list as a more advanced next book. For Differential Equations and Linear Algebra, I'm using Strang's book of the same name, and the associated MIT OCW lectures.
Send me a PM if you'd like to discuss further!