1 00:00:02,510 --> 00:00:04,520 Everyone and welcome back to this class 2 00:00:08,260 --> 00:00:13,560 this is a short lecture I like to give in each of my courses on how to succeed in this course. 3 00:00:13,630 --> 00:00:18,480 This is very important to talk about because you're learning a difficult technical subject. 4 00:00:18,490 --> 00:00:23,040 It's easy to get stuck or even worse give up because you're just not getting things. 5 00:00:23,380 --> 00:00:27,150 Maybe there are too many gaps in your knowledge so you can't connect the dots. 6 00:00:27,190 --> 00:00:30,430 Maybe some assumption you've made is incorrect. 7 00:00:30,430 --> 00:00:33,400 And keep in mind there is a lot of material in this course. 8 00:00:33,400 --> 00:00:38,740 It can be overwhelming if you're new to this field of study and you're not familiar with the conventions 9 00:00:38,740 --> 00:00:41,430 and the typical patterns we use. 10 00:00:41,580 --> 00:00:47,040 Now if you've already seen this lecture in the past you're more than welcome to skip it if you remember 11 00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:50,040 what's in it and you're already using these guidelines. 12 00:00:55,050 --> 00:00:57,360 The first guideline is this. 13 00:00:57,360 --> 00:00:59,890 Remember that I want you to succeed. 14 00:00:59,910 --> 00:01:03,540 In fact that's why I'm giving you these guidelines in the first place. 15 00:01:03,690 --> 00:01:09,840 So if at any point when you're watching these lectures and you become confused just ask on the Q&A. 16 00:01:09,840 --> 00:01:16,650 Also known as the discussion forum Typically I respond within hours sometimes even within minutes if 17 00:01:16,650 --> 00:01:20,170 I happen to be on the site and I see a notification. 18 00:01:20,340 --> 00:01:22,220 I answer any and all questions. 19 00:01:22,230 --> 00:01:25,860 So even if you think it's stupid just ask anyway. 20 00:01:26,340 --> 00:01:30,590 One example I get from time to time is where do I get the code for this course. 21 00:01:30,750 --> 00:01:35,460 And of course my answer is typically Well it's in the lecture called where to get the code for this 22 00:01:35,460 --> 00:01:36,320 course. 23 00:01:36,540 --> 00:01:40,760 At the end of the day no one cares if your question was trivial or silly. 24 00:01:40,860 --> 00:01:44,720 If it's something keeping you from progressing in the course I want to answer it. 25 00:01:49,610 --> 00:01:55,200 Now Very rarely I get people saying well I was so confused that I couldn't even think of the right question 26 00:01:55,220 --> 00:02:00,780 ask and this is where you have to take some responsibility for your own learning. 27 00:02:00,890 --> 00:02:06,360 You have to ask yourself what did the instructor assume I know that I didn't actually know. 28 00:02:06,830 --> 00:02:10,920 Maybe I can look into those things and that will help me formulate a question. 29 00:02:11,060 --> 00:02:16,490 Maybe there's some background knowledge I'm missing a lot of people like to have exercises to practice 30 00:02:16,550 --> 00:02:23,120 when they're taking a course the act of thinking of the right question to ask is itself an exercise. 31 00:02:23,300 --> 00:02:28,740 It might not be the type of exercise you thought you'd be doing but in many ways this is more profound. 32 00:02:28,760 --> 00:02:34,610 This is an exercise that requires you to think and to change how you think and ultimately that is the 33 00:02:34,610 --> 00:02:41,800 best value you can get out of a course. 34 00:02:41,820 --> 00:02:48,130 Speaking of background knowledge this is one of the most important guidelines in this lecture you may 35 00:02:48,130 --> 00:02:54,040 have noticed that in the course description I've listed some prerequisites or in other words things 36 00:02:54,040 --> 00:02:56,240 you should know before starting this course. 37 00:02:57,060 --> 00:03:00,160 Now you might wonder why do I ask you to know these things. 38 00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:05,700 Why don't I just teach them in the course and while we do review some topics in this course it's not 39 00:03:05,700 --> 00:03:07,030 the focus. 40 00:03:07,030 --> 00:03:12,680 There is such a wide variety of students in this Course students from almost every country in the world. 41 00:03:12,750 --> 00:03:15,860 Students of all ages students of all backgrounds. 42 00:03:15,960 --> 00:03:17,100 What does this mean. 43 00:03:17,940 --> 00:03:22,450 That means let's review for one person is going to be totally new for another. 44 00:03:22,470 --> 00:03:25,180 Some people are going to tell me they don't know calculus. 45 00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:29,310 Some people are going to be very far behind with their Python programming skills. 46 00:03:32,440 --> 00:03:38,290 But if we start teaching Python programming skills other people are going to say hey why are we doing 47 00:03:38,290 --> 00:03:38,940 Python. 48 00:03:39,010 --> 00:03:41,470 Isn't the topic of this course deep learning. 49 00:03:41,650 --> 00:03:44,300 And I tend to agree that we should stay on topic. 50 00:03:44,620 --> 00:03:50,990 So how can we reconcile this well it doesn't make sense for me to give you an entire computer science 51 00:03:50,990 --> 00:03:56,490 education in this one course because a lot of that would be irrelevant for a lot of people. 52 00:03:56,570 --> 00:04:02,150 The only logical thing to do is for all of us to meet at a common meeting point. 53 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:03,680 How is that point defined. 54 00:04:03,950 --> 00:04:06,550 Well it's defined by the course prerequisites. 55 00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:12,800 In fact they are so important that in certain instances I've listed the cause prerequisites twice just 56 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:14,710 in case you missed it the first time. 57 00:04:14,840 --> 00:04:21,880 And I'm also reminding you now for good measure. 58 00:04:21,920 --> 00:04:27,200 Now one pitfall is that people sometimes assume they know things that they don't really know. 59 00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:33,000 So if you took calculus 20 years ago and you got a C and you skipped class and the times that you did 60 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:37,640 show up for class you were sleeping well probably you don't know that much calculus. 61 00:04:37,820 --> 00:04:40,030 But remember I want you to succeed. 62 00:04:40,250 --> 00:04:43,010 I want you to be able to learn this material. 63 00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:47,590 I can point you to resources where you can pick up this missing background knowledge. 64 00:04:47,750 --> 00:04:50,370 But the key is you have to ask. 65 00:04:50,530 --> 00:04:55,690 In some cases there are certain places where I'm not allowed to post certain links so we have to be 66 00:04:55,690 --> 00:04:58,470 mindful of the rules of the platform we're using. 67 00:05:03,270 --> 00:05:08,260 Now occasionally people ask me Well why don't you just teach a course for pure beginners. 68 00:05:08,730 --> 00:05:14,100 Why don't you teach these courses in such a way that they don't require lots of math and lots of prerequisites 69 00:05:15,190 --> 00:05:19,990 While I don't want to turn this into an easy beginner's type of course because for one that's not what 70 00:05:19,990 --> 00:05:21,690 I'm interested in personally. 71 00:05:21,910 --> 00:05:26,020 And number two don't forget that this is State of the art stuff. 72 00:05:26,020 --> 00:05:31,870 State of the art generally isn't easy and if it were easy that would mean everyone is doing it. 73 00:05:31,870 --> 00:05:36,760 And if a thousand other people can do the same thing as you well what's a potential employer going to 74 00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:37,430 think. 75 00:05:37,870 --> 00:05:43,120 What are your chances of getting that job when all 1000 of you have the exact same skills. 76 00:05:44,220 --> 00:05:46,640 So we don't want skills that are easy to get. 77 00:05:46,650 --> 00:05:51,960 We want skills that are hard to get skills that put you at the top of your game skills that not many 78 00:05:51,960 --> 00:05:53,210 people have. 79 00:05:53,220 --> 00:05:58,710 If I'm hiring someone I want the guy who stands out not the guy who says the same thing as everyone 80 00:05:58,710 --> 00:06:03,990 else. 81 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:07,900 Finally the final guideline for how to succeed in this course. 82 00:06:08,170 --> 00:06:13,710 I mentioned earlier that there is a lot of material so much that it can be hard to keep track of. 83 00:06:13,750 --> 00:06:19,240 In addition to taking your own notes and doing all the derivations yourself how can you be absolutely 84 00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:21,940 sure you're understanding this material. 85 00:06:22,060 --> 00:06:26,110 I would in fact consider this even more important than the derivations. 86 00:06:26,110 --> 00:06:31,850 Not everyone is going to be a pro at math so it's understandable if you want to skip a few steps. 87 00:06:31,900 --> 00:06:37,480 Sometimes it's possible to compartmentalize some concepts or delegate learning them for some other time 88 00:06:37,990 --> 00:06:42,340 but still understanding the high level picture and how it fits in with everything else. 89 00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:46,380 What you cannot skip is the implementation. 90 00:06:46,380 --> 00:06:57,080 Implementing these algorithms in code is the real test for whether or not you understand the material. 91 00:06:57,140 --> 00:07:02,300 And this is not about reinventing the wheel or that you shouldn't roll your own whatever because someone 92 00:07:02,300 --> 00:07:04,460 else out there can do it better than you. 93 00:07:04,460 --> 00:07:09,900 That is a software engineering principle not a principle of learning in production. 94 00:07:09,920 --> 00:07:13,260 You don't want to write your own hash map or your own string class. 95 00:07:13,370 --> 00:07:19,590 And yet what do we usually do as an exercise in a typical intro to computer science class. 96 00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:21,540 Well we do precisely that. 97 00:07:21,590 --> 00:07:26,580 We implemented hash maps and we implement strings. 98 00:07:26,810 --> 00:07:28,390 And why do we do this. 99 00:07:28,730 --> 00:07:32,720 Because we want to have a better understanding of how these things work. 100 00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:38,510 If you make an assumption that's incorrect while your code is probably just not going to work merely 101 00:07:38,510 --> 00:07:44,750 using a hash map and using a string only gives you a very superficial understanding that's beginner 102 00:07:44,750 --> 00:07:51,010 stuff that's stuff everyone knows that's not stuff that's going to help you stand out from the competition. 103 00:07:51,170 --> 00:07:56,660 And it's true that you'll never use your own homemade hash map of your own homemade string in any code 104 00:07:56,660 --> 00:07:57,280 you write. 105 00:07:57,530 --> 00:08:01,520 Unless of course you are a professional that focuses on that sort of thing. 106 00:08:01,820 --> 00:08:06,950 They'll probably be inefficient and they'll probably have bugs but that's OK because you're not doing 107 00:08:06,950 --> 00:08:08,670 it to make it perfect. 108 00:08:08,750 --> 00:08:11,260 You're doing it to learn. 109 00:08:11,290 --> 00:08:16,420 You'll notice that the general pattern that this course follows is that we always discuss theory and 110 00:08:16,420 --> 00:08:18,450 then we implement that theory in code. 111 00:08:18,730 --> 00:08:23,060 So we're always going from theory to code implementing everything that we learned. 112 00:08:24,670 --> 00:08:31,310 If you can try to implement something before watching the coding lecture in the appendix I have a lecture 113 00:08:31,310 --> 00:08:33,330 called how to code by yourself. 114 00:08:33,500 --> 00:08:39,560 There goes much more in-depth into this topic along with multiple strategies for how to approach implementation 115 00:08:39,560 --> 00:08:45,260 exercises. 116 00:08:45,280 --> 00:08:50,820 So to summarize these are the guidelines I think are going to help you succeed in this course. 117 00:08:50,830 --> 00:08:58,260 Number one make generous use of the Q&A even when you can't think of the right question ask. 118 00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:02,320 Number two make sure you meet the prerequisites to this course. 119 00:09:02,460 --> 00:09:09,940 If you're not sure what they are or you're not sure how C guideline number one number three try your 120 00:09:09,940 --> 00:09:10,330 best. 121 00:09:10,360 --> 00:09:12,390 Implement everything we learn. 122 00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:15,480 This is the true test for whether or not you understand something. 123 00:09:17,460 --> 00:09:23,220 Remember that it's perfectly normal to get stuck once in a while I get stuck all the time when I'm learning. 124 00:09:23,220 --> 00:09:24,940 That doesn't mean I'm not smart. 125 00:09:25,170 --> 00:09:28,510 Nor does it mean the book or video I'm learning from is bad. 126 00:09:28,560 --> 00:09:33,780 It means that there is a disconnect between what the author believes I knew and what I actually know 127 00:09:34,460 --> 00:09:41,770 and as a learner I do my best to close that gap a good skill to have is learning how to compartmentalize 128 00:09:41,770 --> 00:09:42,850 concepts. 129 00:09:42,850 --> 00:09:44,950 So here are the things I understand. 130 00:09:44,950 --> 00:09:46,670 Here are the things I don't understand. 131 00:09:46,810 --> 00:09:50,100 But here are the things I understand about the things I don't understand. 132 00:09:50,290 --> 00:09:52,150 And these are the holes. 133 00:09:52,270 --> 00:09:56,440 So you know what you're missing and you know where they fit and you can work to fill in those gaps over 134 00:09:56,440 --> 00:09:57,230 time. 135 00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:03,300 One thing I've been doing quite a bit recently is adding review lectures to my courses. 136 00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:08,180 These aren't meant to teach you everything from scratch since that's going to take you a long time but 137 00:10:08,180 --> 00:10:11,700 they are meant to help you recall certain things you may have forgotten. 138 00:10:11,750 --> 00:10:17,240 So if you have an idea for a review lecture that you'd like to see added to this course please feel 139 00:10:17,240 --> 00:10:19,220 free to make a suggestion using the Q&A.