1 00:00:02,600 --> 00:00:04,610 Everyone and welcome back to this class 2 00:00:08,330 --> 00:00:13,630 this is a short lecture I like to give in each of my courses on how to succeed in this course. 3 00:00:13,700 --> 00:00:18,560 This is very important to talk about because you're learning a difficult technical subject. 4 00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:19,760 It's easy to get stuck. 5 00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:23,340 Or even worse give up because you're just not getting things. 6 00:00:23,450 --> 00:00:27,240 Maybe there are too many gaps in your knowledge so you can't connect the dots. 7 00:00:27,260 --> 00:00:30,100 Maybe some assumption you've made is incorrect. 8 00:00:30,500 --> 00:00:33,500 And keep in mind there is a lot of material in this course. 9 00:00:33,500 --> 00:00:38,780 It can be overwhelming if you're new to this field of study and you're not familiar with the conventions 10 00:00:38,810 --> 00:00:41,510 and the typical patterns we use. 11 00:00:41,650 --> 00:00:47,110 Now if you've already seen this lecture in the past you're more than welcome to skip it if you remember 12 00:00:47,110 --> 00:00:50,150 what's in it and you're already using these guidelines. 13 00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:57,450 The first guideline is this. 14 00:00:57,460 --> 00:00:59,960 Remember that I want you to succeed. 15 00:00:59,980 --> 00:01:03,760 In fact that's why I'm giving you these guidelines in the first place. 16 00:01:03,760 --> 00:01:09,870 So if at any point when you watching these lectures and you become confused just ask on the Q&A. 17 00:01:09,910 --> 00:01:16,720 Also known as the discussion forum Typically I respond within hours sometimes even within minutes if 18 00:01:16,720 --> 00:01:20,410 I happen to be on the site and I see a notification. 19 00:01:20,410 --> 00:01:22,320 I answer any and all questions. 20 00:01:22,330 --> 00:01:25,240 So even if you think it's stupid just ask. 21 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:30,550 Anyway one example I get from time to time is where do I get the code for this course. 22 00:01:30,820 --> 00:01:36,370 And of course my answer is typically Well it's in a lecture called where to get the code for this course. 23 00:01:36,610 --> 00:01:40,830 At the end of the day no one cares if your question was trivial or silly. 24 00:01:40,930 --> 00:01:44,750 If it's something keeping you from progressing in the course I want to answer it. 25 00:01:49,660 --> 00:01:55,270 Now Very rarely I get people saying well I was so confused that I couldn't even think of the right question 26 00:01:55,290 --> 00:02:00,860 ask and this is where you have to take some responsibility for your own learning. 27 00:02:00,970 --> 00:02:06,690 You have to ask yourself what did the instructor assume I know that I didn't actually know. 28 00:02:06,910 --> 00:02:10,979 Maybe I can look into those things and that will help me formulate a question. 29 00:02:11,110 --> 00:02:16,570 Maybe there's some background knowledge I'm missing a lot of people like to have exercises to practice 30 00:02:16,630 --> 00:02:23,240 when they're taking a course the active thinking of the right question to ask is itself an exercise. 31 00:02:23,380 --> 00:02:28,790 It might not be the type of exercise you thought you'd be doing but in many ways this is more profound. 32 00:02:28,810 --> 00:02:34,690 This is an exercise that requires you to think and to change how you think and ultimately that is the 33 00:02:34,690 --> 00:02:36,800 best value you can get out of course. 34 00:02:41,890 --> 00:02:47,710 Speaking of background knowledge this is one of the most important guidelines in this lecture. 35 00:02:47,930 --> 00:02:53,600 You may have noticed that in the course description I've listed some prerequisites or in other words 36 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:56,320 things you should know before starting this course. 37 00:02:57,030 --> 00:03:00,240 Now you might wonder why do I ask you to know these things. 38 00:03:00,330 --> 00:03:05,760 Why don't I just teach them in the course and while we do review some topics in this course it's not 39 00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:07,080 the focus. 40 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:12,750 There is such a wide variety of students in this Course students from almost every country in the world. 41 00:03:12,810 --> 00:03:15,700 Students of all ages students of all backgrounds. 42 00:03:16,020 --> 00:03:17,220 What does this mean. 43 00:03:17,990 --> 00:03:22,530 That means let's review for one person is going to be totally new for another. 44 00:03:22,550 --> 00:03:25,280 Some people are going to tell me they don't know calculus. 45 00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:29,390 Some people are going to be very far behind with their Python programming skills. 46 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:38,370 But if we start teaching Python programming skills other people are going to say hey why are we doing 47 00:03:38,370 --> 00:03:41,590 Python isn't the topic of this course deep learning. 48 00:03:41,730 --> 00:03:44,370 And I tend to agree that we should stay on topic. 49 00:03:44,700 --> 00:03:51,060 So how can we reconcile this well it doesn't make sense for me to give you an entire computer science 50 00:03:51,060 --> 00:03:56,530 education in this one course because a lot of that would be irrelevant for a lot of people. 51 00:03:56,640 --> 00:04:02,180 The only logical thing to do is for all of us to meet at a common meeting point. 52 00:04:02,310 --> 00:04:03,740 How is that point defined. 53 00:04:04,020 --> 00:04:06,410 Well it's defined by the course prerequisites. 54 00:04:06,660 --> 00:04:12,900 In fact they are so important that in certain instances I've listed the cause prerequisites twice just 55 00:04:12,900 --> 00:04:14,770 in case you missed it the first time. 56 00:04:14,910 --> 00:04:17,240 And I'm also reminding you now for good measure. 57 00:04:22,010 --> 00:04:27,290 Now one pitfall is that people sometimes assume they know things that they don't really know. 58 00:04:27,290 --> 00:04:33,080 So if you took calculus 20 years ago and you got a C and you skipped class and the times that you didn't 59 00:04:33,080 --> 00:04:37,580 show up for class you were sleeping well probably you don't know that much calculus. 60 00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:40,100 But remember I want you to succeed. 61 00:04:40,310 --> 00:04:43,130 I want you to be able to learn this material. 62 00:04:43,130 --> 00:04:48,560 I can point you to resources where you can pick up this missing background knowledge but the key is 63 00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:50,450 you have to ask. 64 00:04:50,610 --> 00:04:55,770 In some cases there are certain places where I'm not allowed to post certain links so we have to be 65 00:04:55,770 --> 00:04:58,570 mindful of the rules of the platform we're using. 66 00:05:03,350 --> 00:05:09,230 Now occasionally people ask me Well why don't you just teach a course for pure beginners Why don't you 67 00:05:09,230 --> 00:05:15,440 teach these courses in such a way that they don't require lots of math and lots of prerequisites While 68 00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:20,210 I don't want to turn this into an easy beginner's type of course because for one that's not what I'm 69 00:05:20,210 --> 00:05:21,770 interested in personally. 70 00:05:21,980 --> 00:05:25,940 And number two don't forget that this is State of the art stuff. 71 00:05:26,090 --> 00:05:31,970 State of the art generally isn't easy and if it were easy that would mean everyone is doing it. 72 00:05:31,970 --> 00:05:36,830 And if a thousand other people can do the same thing as you well what's a potential employer going to 73 00:05:36,830 --> 00:05:44,220 think what are your chances of getting that job when all 1000 of you have the exact same skills. 74 00:05:44,290 --> 00:05:46,710 So we don't want skills that are easy to get. 75 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:52,030 We want skills that are hard to get skills that puts you at the top of your game skills that not many 76 00:05:52,030 --> 00:05:53,280 people have. 77 00:05:53,290 --> 00:05:58,780 If I'm hiring someone I want the guy who stands out not the guy who says the same thing as everyone 78 00:05:58,780 --> 00:05:59,450 else. 79 00:06:04,070 --> 00:06:07,970 Finally the final guideline for how to succeed in this course. 80 00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:13,800 I mentioned earlier that there is a lot of material so much that it can be hard to keep track of. 81 00:06:13,840 --> 00:06:19,330 In addition to taking your own notes and doing all the derivations yourself how can you be absolutely 82 00:06:19,330 --> 00:06:22,000 sure you're understanding this material. 83 00:06:22,120 --> 00:06:26,200 I would in fact consider this even more important than the derivations. 84 00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:31,940 Not everyone is going to be a pro at math so it's understandable if you want to skip a few steps. 85 00:06:31,990 --> 00:06:37,560 Sometimes it's possible to compartmentalize some concepts or delegate learning them for some other time 86 00:06:38,050 --> 00:06:42,620 but still understanding the high level picture and how it fits in with everything else. 87 00:06:43,190 --> 00:06:46,460 What you cannot skip is the implementation. 88 00:06:46,460 --> 00:06:52,200 Implementing these algorithms in code is the real test for whether or not you understand the material 89 00:06:57,220 --> 00:07:02,380 and this is not about reinventing the wheel or that you shouldn't roll your own whatever because someone 90 00:07:02,380 --> 00:07:04,540 else out there can do it better than you. 91 00:07:04,540 --> 00:07:09,960 That is a software engineering principle not a principle of learning in production. 92 00:07:09,970 --> 00:07:13,190 You don't want to write your own hash map or your own string class. 93 00:07:13,450 --> 00:07:20,410 And yet what do we usually do as an exercise in a typical intro to computer science class where we do 94 00:07:20,410 --> 00:07:21,600 precisely that. 95 00:07:21,670 --> 00:07:26,830 We implemented hash maps and we implemented strings. 96 00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:28,410 And why do we do this. 97 00:07:28,780 --> 00:07:32,800 Because we want to have a better understanding of how these things work. 98 00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:38,590 If you make an assumption that's incorrect while your code is probably just not going to work merely 99 00:07:38,590 --> 00:07:44,830 using a hash map and using a string only gives you a very superficial understanding that's beginner 100 00:07:44,830 --> 00:07:51,090 stuff that's stuff everyone knows that's not stuff that's going to help you stand out from the competition. 101 00:07:51,250 --> 00:07:56,710 And it's true that you'll never use your own homemade hash map of your own home made string in any code 102 00:07:56,710 --> 00:07:57,380 you write. 103 00:07:57,610 --> 00:08:01,600 Unless of course you are a professional that focuses on that sort of thing. 104 00:08:01,900 --> 00:08:07,030 They'll probably be inefficient and they'll probably have bugs but that's OK because you're not doing 105 00:08:07,030 --> 00:08:08,750 it to make it perfect. 106 00:08:08,830 --> 00:08:11,320 You're doing it to learn. 107 00:08:11,340 --> 00:08:16,500 You'll notice that the general pattern that this course follows is that we always discuss theory and 108 00:08:16,500 --> 00:08:18,700 then we implement that theory in code. 109 00:08:18,780 --> 00:08:24,680 So we're always going from theory to code implementing everything that we learned. 110 00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:31,390 If you can try to implement something before watching the coding lecture in the appendix I have a lecture 111 00:08:31,390 --> 00:08:33,409 called How to code by yourself. 112 00:08:33,580 --> 00:08:39,640 That goes much more in-depth into this topic along with multiple strategies for how to approach implementation 113 00:08:39,640 --> 00:08:40,640 exercises. 114 00:08:45,360 --> 00:08:50,900 So to summarize these are the guidelines I think are going to help you succeed in this course. 115 00:08:50,910 --> 00:08:58,320 Number one make generous use of the Q&A even when you can't think of the right question ask. 116 00:08:58,390 --> 00:09:02,410 Number two make sure you meet the prerequisites to this course. 117 00:09:02,560 --> 00:09:08,280 If you're not sure what they are or you're not sure how the guideline number one. 118 00:09:08,430 --> 00:09:10,390 Number three try your best. 119 00:09:10,410 --> 00:09:12,340 Implement everything we learn. 120 00:09:12,450 --> 00:09:17,480 This is the true test for whether or not you understand something. 121 00:09:17,540 --> 00:09:20,700 Remember that it's perfectly normal to get stuck once in a while. 122 00:09:21,080 --> 00:09:23,230 I get stuck all the time when I'm learning. 123 00:09:23,300 --> 00:09:25,000 That doesn't mean I'm not smart. 124 00:09:25,250 --> 00:09:28,620 Nor does it mean the book or video I'm learning from is bad. 125 00:09:28,640 --> 00:09:33,860 It means that there is a disconnect between what the author believes I knew and what I actually know 126 00:09:34,550 --> 00:09:41,840 and as a learner I do my best to close that gap a good skill to have is learning how to compartmentalize 127 00:09:41,840 --> 00:09:42,730 concepts. 128 00:09:42,920 --> 00:09:47,810 So here are the things I understand here are the things I don't understand but here are the things I 129 00:09:47,840 --> 00:09:50,170 understand about the things I don't understand. 130 00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:52,340 And these are the holes. 131 00:09:52,340 --> 00:09:56,510 So you know what you're missing and you know where they fit and you can work to fill in those gaps over 132 00:09:56,510 --> 00:09:57,200 time. 133 00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:03,100 One thing I've been doing quite a bit recently is adding review lectures to my courses. 134 00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:08,260 These are meant to teach you everything from scratch since that's going to take you a long time but 135 00:10:08,260 --> 00:10:11,510 they are meant to help you recall certain things you may have forgotten. 136 00:10:11,800 --> 00:10:17,320 So if you have an idea for a review lecture that you'd like to see added to this course please feel 137 00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:19,300 free to make a suggestion using the Q&A.