My recollection of Berkeley’s discrete math course (compsci-oriented version that also emphasizes probability heavily) was that it was taught mostly from some pretty nice lecture notes. Looks like the lecture notes from the Fall 2012 compsci version of the course are available for download from the course website.
It occurred to me the other year that lecture notes could be a good way to learn things in general, or at least pick up the basics of a subject:
There’s no incentive for instructors to pad them to appease publishers.
Unlike textbooks or Wikipedia, they’re being updated constantly based on what seems to work for explaining concepts most effectively.
They’re often available freely for download. (site:youruniversity.edu yoursubject on Google, OCWs, etc.)
They’re probably written to communicate understanding rather than achieve perfect rigor.
If you know how long the corresponding lecture took, you can set a timer for that length of time (or 0.8 times as long, or whatever) and aim to get through the lecture notes before the timer rings (taking notes if you want; keep glancing at the timer and your progress to calibrate your speed). This is a pretty good motivational hack, in my experience. I like it better than attending an actual lecture because I can dive deeper or skim over stuff as I like, so it’s kind of like a personalized version of the lecture. I don’t worry if I end up skimming over some stuff and not understanding it perfectly—I don’t understand everything in a “real” lecture either (much less, really).
They break the course material in to nice manageable chunks: if the class covered one set of notes per day, for instance, you could do the same in your self-study. (Don’t Break the Chain and BeeMinder come to mind as macro-level motivational hacks that may be useful.)
My recollection of Berkeley’s discrete math course (compsci-oriented version that also emphasizes probability heavily) was that it was taught mostly from some pretty nice lecture notes. Looks like the lecture notes from the Fall 2012 compsci version of the course are available for download from the course website.
It occurred to me the other year that lecture notes could be a good way to learn things in general, or at least pick up the basics of a subject:
There’s no incentive for instructors to pad them to appease publishers.
Unlike textbooks or Wikipedia, they’re being updated constantly based on what seems to work for explaining concepts most effectively.
They’re often available freely for download. (site:youruniversity.edu yoursubject on Google, OCWs, etc.)
They’re probably written to communicate understanding rather than achieve perfect rigor.
If you know how long the corresponding lecture took, you can set a timer for that length of time (or 0.8 times as long, or whatever) and aim to get through the lecture notes before the timer rings (taking notes if you want; keep glancing at the timer and your progress to calibrate your speed). This is a pretty good motivational hack, in my experience. I like it better than attending an actual lecture because I can dive deeper or skim over stuff as I like, so it’s kind of like a personalized version of the lecture. I don’t worry if I end up skimming over some stuff and not understanding it perfectly—I don’t understand everything in a “real” lecture either (much less, really).
They break the course material in to nice manageable chunks: if the class covered one set of notes per day, for instance, you could do the same in your self-study. (Don’t Break the Chain and BeeMinder come to mind as macro-level motivational hacks that may be useful.)