It’s been over two years since I last took a course in college, and I felt like I was missing something from my daily life. So when I found out that Stanford was offering a number of its computer science classes on the web, I jumped at the chance. I decided to enroll in the Artificial Intelligence course, taught by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. Feeling slightly ambitious, I signed up for the advanced track:

This course is offered in two tracks. The advanced track is intended to be an undergraduate or early graduate level course, and you should plan on spending around ten hours a week or more on it. It will involve weekly homework assignments as well as a midterm exam and a final exam. In order to receive a statement of accomplishment for the advanced track you must take both the midterm and the final exam.

The basic track is for people interested in the material but who do not have time or would prefer not to do homework assignments and exams. You will be able to view the same lectures as the advanced track, and will have access to the homework assignments and exams after they have been completed by students in the advanced track but will not be scored on them. In order to receive a statement of accomplishment for the basic track you must stay active and continue to view material throughout the course.

Turns out, more than 160,000 people signed up for this course. The first week has come and gone, and I’m happy to report that I did well on the first homework assignment.

A number of people are blogging about their experience in taking these computer science courses. For example, Chris Wilson over at Slate is blogging about the machine learning course:

So far, the math in this class has ranged from third-grade arithmetic to multi-variable calculus and linear algebra. This is fortunate for me, because the latter two were the last two math classes I took in college, and I also graduated from the third grade. (Professor Ng reassures us that, if some of the math is over our heads for now, we’ll still be able to do the homework.)  

If anyone is interested, I will blog more about the Artificial Intelligence course and how I am doing in it.