Courses

I often fear I’m at a risk of dilettantism: learning only superficial knowledge about a wide variety of subjects, and never cultivating depth. From podcasts to popular books, there is a multi-billion euro industry in simulating the feeling of learning.

One way I have tried to counter this is by taking online courses in the topics I am interested in, instead of just reading. Note that your retention and understanding will be dramatically improved if you do the readings and exercises, and note also that almost no one does this. Here are the most interesting courses I’ve taken:

Yale, Intro to Psychology. Paul Bloom is one of my favourite psychologists; his book about empathy was a fun read. For this, I read (most of) the Norton Psychology Reader.

Yale, Intro to Political Philosophy. This was the first time reading the Republic and the Apology, and I enjoyed being guided through it.

Stanford, Introduction to Human Behavioural Biology. I was unable to find a reading list or exercises for this course, but if you watch the lectures I recommend reading James Gleick’s Chaos and Robert Sapolsky’s Behave.

Marginal Revolution University offers fun courses on micro, macro, econometrics, and development economics.

Yale, Death. Most the value came from the curated reading list; I particularly enjoyed Thomas Nagel’s Mortal Questions, and John Perry’s A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality.

Brilliant offers superb courses on linear algebra, statistics, and competitive maths. I try to solve at least a few problems on Brilliant every day, so that my knowledge of mathematics doesn’t atrophy entirely.