Coursera Updates

I may be at Oxford, but I haven't lost my passion for taking online courses at Coursera.org. Last spring, I finished the Computer Networks, which was great preparation for my summer internship at Akamai. Recently, I completed Foundations of Business Strategy, which was the furthest departure from computer science I have taken thus far. It was a fascinating class that showed me a totally new way of thinking about the companies I see every day. I also just finished Functional Programming Principles in Scala, which nicely complements my study of functional programming at Oxford.

Currently, I'm taking the Automata class from Stanford, Algorithms Part II from Princeton, and Human-Computer Interaction from UCSD. The Automata class is very mathematically rigorous, and it reminds me of studying cryptography last year. The classes I'm taking at Oxford have a similar level of rigor, and the proofs are good practice for the sort of thing I'm doing for my degree. I took Algorithms Part I last fall, and really enjoyed it, so I'm taking the second half now. I tried to take it last spring, but ended up not having enough time to finish it. Hopefully, I'll be able to stick it out this time. Human-Computer Interaction is a really fascinating class because it covers a really crucial part of computer science that isn't really discussed. Given that almost every program is written with a user in mind, we actually spend far less time on interface design than we could. HCI provides a scientific process for designing interfaces and testing their usability. More generally, it provides helpful tips for anyone designing an application. Overall, I'm still enjoying everything Coursera has to offer and I'm excited to keep augmenting my studies with its content.