I am looking for a self-improvement alternative to doom scrolling social media in my downtime. In the past, I have done mostly career oriented courses (tech/computer science), but I’m tired of those, want to branch out. Has anyone taken a MOOC class, not necessarily for any specific objectibe, that was especially good?
Stanford and Harvard both have all sorts of interesting lecture series online! Harvard has stuff like urban design, religious history, art history, the relationship between cooking and physics, biology, Chinese history and much more!
https://pll.harvard.edu/catalog/free
Haven’t taken any with Stanford but here’s a link to their catalogue:
I’m basically in the same boat as OP but this reminded me that I love learning languages.
Mandarin is a huge challenge but after programming all day, it’s actually incredible the way my brain feels after practicing with a tutor for an hour. Originally I meant to get away from the computer but ended up using an online service.
What are you passionate about?
Music (but not a very good musician), other cultures and international travel, history.
Have you thought of trying to pick up another language? Started learning Spanish 4 years ago and now I can go on vacation and have conversations with locals. Also, I’m more interested in their local history because I can read it/listen to it in Spanish and practice the language at the same time.
Have you tried video editing? You can do a lot with a good song and curiosity.
Hey I’m not a good musician either, maybe we should collaborate! Either way join us at !musicproduction@sh.itjust.works
I did, thanks!
Sweet, what kind of music do you like or play? Any instrument?
I play keyboards, have a decent electronic piand which doubles as a MIDI controller. I like prog, the nerdier end of techno/electronica/hip-hop, and classical. LCD Soundsystem, Stereolab, King Crimson.
Sounds like we would have some stylistic overlap then. What DAW do you use?
Ableton Live. Max looks interesting, and one of these days I am going to try it out.
Learn an instrument! An hour of noodling a day will get you to pretty good quite quickly. An hour of real, hard practice, doing etudes, drills, and scales will make you a virtuoso one day.
Learn “Toki Pona” language, it’s the worlds tiniest language with only 120 words.
Oxford Continuing Education has a lot of interesting courses. I did one in Inequality & Labour Markets to give me a taster of what a masters would be like, and if I was able to consistently devote time to studying each week.
Cant recommend meditation enough.
I pursued Zen seriously for a while, I still practice at times, should do it more.
You can download Great Lectures on many high-level topics
Programming. It’s really fun. Learn the concepts of programming and maybe study CS. Then learn a programming language.
Start with the simple ones then try the “harder” ones. For example I started with Python and now know Rust.
Fits like this on my phone
Fits like this on my phone
Literally anything you find interesting.
Learning begets learning. The more you learn the easier learning becomes.
So start learning things that are interesting… then worry about things tha are “valuable”.
Speedrun Hollow Knight
Set realistic goals
i liked the ‘introduction to mathmatical thinking’ mooc from stanford. its free on coursera
Study physics. It never hurts to know some physics.
