Day 1

Day the first.

When the first day of class is two days long, one should spend some quality personal time considering the reality before one, yes?

When one is being taught by the collective brain trust of the Biostatistics Department of the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, it would seem as if there were some preliminary conclusions one could make prior to dipping one's foot into the pool. Yes?

I have reached two conclusions on the first day:

1. If it seems simple, re-evaluate everything.

2. If you must accelerate the speed and complexity of your learning, do so as quickly as possible.

Two courses in the inaugural session. (See #1)

I will probably survive, intact, both courses. Probably. Four weeks. Two projects. Both presented on the first day of class. Both due on the same day. Both begun yesterday.

I find the absence of video presence of the Instructors strangely unfamiliar, and a little disconcerting. I am reminded of an historical "classic": audio files narrating a PowerPoint Presentation.

When the first "recommendation" of your Instructor is to "review" a title in preparation for the quiz due this Friday, you would probably take a casual gander at the recommended reading. Right? Well, what do you do when the "reading" is 574 pages? (See #1 ) And this is the first of perhaps 100 links in the first week of the course. There are some critical observations which might be made here, anon. :)

The Course is The Data Scientist's Toolbox, an introductory course to the field of study. R, RStudio, Gist, Git, Github, Swirl, NotePad, MaxTek.... all of which (and much more) you must initiate with new accounts, provide proof screenshots, and immediately use within this Introductory Course can make your first day two days long. I do love a challenge!

The instructor is great! There is not one wasted word in his lectures.  (See #1, #2)

Dr. Jeff Leek takes us on a journey of exploration, innovation, and implementation, presuming that we must surely HAVE a toolbox into which we will automatically place each of these (and several other) data science tools. We will, he further seems to allege, master them to his level of expectation--by Friday.

I'm not being fair here, but I am trying to make a specific point. MOOC's in general have a vastly underrated (and, I have found unwarranted) expectation of "casual learning".

This specialization/certification ain't that. At all. But the brilliance of the Instructors does what brilliant instructors have always done. A level of expectation that honors learning, honors the student, and honors the work is literally painted over the student from the first moment, and Leek does an alarmingly disarming job of it. By the end of the first week of lectures, the student has been elevated into the rarefied atmosphere of what is possible! The instruction is disarming...until you realize the expectation. It is a whiplash/whipsaw effect that can behead the unsuspecting student.

Enter Dr. Roger Peng, and the R Programming Course. A word in my own defense here, if you please. (Or if you don't, actually. :) My blog, my rules!)

As Dr. Leek says within the first five minutes of the first lecture, "We here at JHU.edu place emphasis on the "science" in the Data Science specialization. We will focus on that emphasis throughout this specialization. Be ready for it."

What you should hear in those statements is something along the lines of "This is your only warning! Let's do this." And, off like a shot.

This reality is not only what gives the JHU-led specialization a much higher level of industry-wide regard, admiration, entre and respect. This philosophy also makes an already intense course track more intense by an order of magnitude. Students are expected to keep up, like a first year med student is expected to keep up. Precisely what I was hoping for, without any expectation of realizing it.

Where Leek very gently takes his students by the hand into some very, very tall grass and lets them go cavorting on their own, Peng races through the course lectures of the first week with the complete authority of a world class leader in the subject--with the full expectation that you will not merely follow, but keep up and perhaps (if you are worthy) sprint ahead. He is disarmingly passionate about his subject. He is unbelievably qualified to lead this Course and as shy and gentle as a lamb in the process.

By week two, you will either be at speed, or you most likely will no longer be a part of the specialization. I'll be there. However, I have written down #1, and #2. I have them posted on the front of my course writing materials. I will see them often.

And, I will probably NEVER have the opportunity to personally thank these monsters of dedicated education. It is just breath taking, the freedom I feel to excel here. Dedication to superior excellence in teaching should always be responded to with superior excellence in learning. This course is flooded with both, and I can't wait!

I cannot possibly do it by myself, or alone.

Isn't that just awesome??

The only thing I can do is sprint, with long strides. That, I will do.