I was reading his book titled "Ultralearning" then I decided to stop and search for him on KZfaq, the book is mind-blowing and so his Tedx Talk. I am watching this video after 9 years and it's relevant and it will forever be. We can't thank you enough, Scott.

*''You spent $ 150,000 on an education that you could have earned for $ 1.50 in late fines at the public library.''*

Self education is the next big thing. Most people alreday recognize this. Intellectually curious people are the ones that never stop learning. We are living in intersting times. The future will be awesome!

"Self-education is the future". After coronavirus has started, we believe that you are totally right Scott:-)

Watching this video after 8 years. This one really made sense.

Self education is the future! Couldn't have agreed more.

this is an exact prediction of 2020, thank you too Scott.

Not only are you acquiring skills in computer science, Scott, but you are honing your skills as a public speaker and reaching an audience with a very compelling message. Nice job! Having raised three engineers and paid the price for their expensive tuition, I can also see the application of your philosophy at the lower levels of education, even as early as primary school. You give all of us much to think about.

Already watching the video at 1.5X speed and hearing him say that he watched them at 1.5x speed... lol

"I didn't want the five-course meal; I wanted my education à la carte ."

I've always believed in teaching myself. I'm bad at learning at a pace that others want me to learn at. In fact, I've learned more when I've learnt for myself than when I learnt for something in school. I'm happy to see this sort of thing get advertised.

In 2023, I just watched this TED and I thought it was something recent, 2022 at most and when I look at the release date... 2012! Wow, really visionary.

I'm Chinese in MIT and can't agree more. We need fast forward buttons

This is so true, I went to university, would have my smart friends who were older orally summarize the subjects of my test to me exactly the night before my test, would take the test and pass it. Then while working on my thesis I went back home - coincided with the pandemic, so I did not have my friends with extreme benefits and I found the second greatest option...KZfaq, listening and taking notes from all the knowledgable people online....Now that was the actual university that I should have gone to in the first place....I would listen to the audios twice the actual speed and yes I did feel lonely because I could not interact with my friends and go places, but a substitute for that was the comments section of the videos, I learnt a lot from that section especially, the people who would take their time to share a thought and real life experiece....Other than the downside of becoming lethargic and getting extremely irritated and uncomfortable when people would ask me what are you doing (well yeh I don't know how to term it exactly) and also making some sort of wealth off of it, the amount of knowledge and intelligence you gain is inspiring and sort of worthwhile.

"the world is Changing to Fast to believe learning stops once you get your diploma" Awesome.

This is pure gold.

I totally appreciate this talk. It's up to students, not schools or gov, to disrupt the educational system. And learning is such a joy. We need to create ways to do it that suit us. Awesome inspiration! Thank you, Scott. Peace & Blessings!

Please do not miss the important point here. Keep learning...

simply amazing , he did it and completed the challenge , respect is what you deserve .

I always do self education during final exams.

I'm really glad Scott brought this up. I've been struggling with my education for the past 21 months going for lessons all day till evening, completing timed assignments in school etc that i didn't have any time or energy left at home to read my notes and to try and understand what I was learning. It's study break now and I've finally understood what the hell I was learning. We all just need some time to self-reflect and to self-learn for a while, which was Scott has brought up.

Agree with him, I found that learning by myself is faster than going to lectures everyday

Very interesting talk! The rewind and replay features are key. I missed so much in the big college lecture halls!

It seems everyone is missing the point. OK, not everyone. I think the point is that we have commercialised and therefore weakened education/learning, and Scott is offering an alternative to the commercial education juggernaut. Universities have a monopoly over issuing degrees and companies trust degrees. But is having a degree a guarantee or even a requirement to being a successful employee/business owner/investor/person?

Such an inspiring talk. Thank you very much, Scott, for this brilliant lecture. I am a big fan of self-learning. Learning new concepts is my passion. The more you learn, the more your brain is picking things quickly and connects it to your knowledge. Learning is the most amazing things ever!

What an amazing presentation!! Very impressive, especially the point that self-learning is the future! Thanks for sharing~

'Self-education is the future', I totally agree with that.

Great presentation, Scott. Direct to the point! congrats!

Well, I was watching this video at 1.5 speed so I could get back to my homework faster...

Really enjoyed it Scott. Cant wait to share it with friends!

I hope my school watches this! Not completely sold but he is bring up some good points. Traditional schools need to ask is this the best way and not be complacent.

I love that you guys are having respectful, intelligent, arguments on here.

He's an engaging speaker. Kudos.

Finding someone with you all the way is really helpful for perseverance

6:30 - I was sitting here wondering why I'm watching this... only to realize, he's now describing exactly what I've been doing for the past 1.5 months, a time-log for every task I take on each day!

Excellent talk on a thought-provoking and revolutionary topic. Your delivery was superb and I expect we'll be seeing and hearing more from you in the years to come.

It is very kind that you responded to clarify your position. Thank you. Yes, I do agree on those thoughts.

He's idea is so amazing. I totally agree with what he said. Study itself is more difficult,and as a student myself, I don't really like to go class a lot, but yet i still need to go because I don't have any choice.

I've switched from that since I do several classes in parallel now. But yes, my time is usually divided between reading/watching, projects/practicing.

Inspiring!! Thank you so much!!!

I always fast forward lectures....and rewind and slow down at the important parts.

This isn't only the education system. It's the entire workforce.

In addition to the quality of your idea, you enunciate and vocalize with marvelous clarity so that the auto-transcription looked complete and accurate. (Too bad the TEDx talks don't publish a transcription the way the TED talks do.) Thanks so much for your website and terrific methods you share. So happy I discovered it.

Loved the talk

Great talk. I think self education is the future!

Cant believe this is 8 years ago! I just learnt the value of KZfaq and online education platforms like Coursera, Ed X, Future learn, etc. I can’t believe all that free information is just out there. I’m learning so much in a much much shorter period for less money and otherwise time that would be wasted doing the mandatory formal education stuff that don’t actually contribute to the end goal.

Fantastic and very thought provoking. Well done

This is great. I started about 4 years ago learning everything I can about programming and computer science. Computer science stuff was on an accident, just curious how things work as I was working on different projects(adding circuits, binary, micro-controllers). I have met CS graduates or students about to graduate and they are very limited in what they have learned. That is because you can pass assignments and classes without a full grasp on the topic. Also students need more guidance. Yes you can ask the professors questions, but the issue is, you are unlikely to know the right questions to ask. Your degree matters very little, it just keeps the employer from throwing your resume away and gets you the interview. You need to do research and use those years to make sure you know what you are doing. Classes are more supplementary(they help, but you need to do your research). Also if you can get an internship, that might be the best way to get guidance. Networking is the next thing, college gives you the advantage of collectively working together with like-minded people. There are things I am great with and then horrible at others but I have friends now that help me understand my weakness(discreet math), as I help them with their's(programming). Simply, use your resources and don't get tunnel vision where you only do classes, also expect lectures to not teach much(fell behind in discreet math because I focused to much on the lectures). Plan your own education and figure out were you need to get to and how. To reiterate, networking is the best thing you can do in college. Professors and other students can be more important then anything else to find work or opportunities. Who you know can mean more then what you know.

Getting an education and learning how to learn...how to live, this is what Scott Young talks about. I'm a fan!

I'm an autodidact too and it's great to see others who are so inspired as to take their education into their own hands. One sentiment I identify with is the legitimacy of knowledge no matter where you got it from. If you pass the tests, complete certain experiments/projects given by an institution, no matter how plentiful they may be, that merits some type of status of competency. Though it seems many places are mainly interested in money and branding

Great talk Scott. Can definitely relate to your experience in the physical lecture theatres. Pause, rewind and fast forward would have been invaluable.

i figured. thankyou! what you're doing requires a lot of persistence. Great job! :)

Yes, I liked that part of the talk. I am actually doing something similar but more modest than doing an MIT degree; I am learning about classical music through wikipedia articles and spotify. I couldn't do what I am doing even if I went to college to take a course on it. The resources that we have now are just amazing.

Reading his book n loving it

Great job! You are absolutly right. In the modern world you have to learn all the time and most of the people get strange feelings if they think about learning, but every human beeing is driven by curiosity in his or her early years... For some reason this curiosity stops after you got through school. There are no bad subjects. I think that every content which you want to learn can be interesting just by thinking about it and think about the reasoning of the inventor of those concepts.

The bachelors in Computer Science from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology has a curriculum that is very heavy of Mathematics. I guess it may be easier to self-teach this curriculum since math seems easier to self-teach when it comes to checking whether you did the exercises correctly? The curriculum is so math-heavy that there's Combinatorics and Graphs I, II and III! Lol. Even Functional Analysis is inside!

Amazing, Scott!

Agreed to 100%,

What Scott is talking about here becomes my reality being in college during pandemic 😂😂

Excellent talk!

Great talk Scott!

I've used speed reading techniques, I just didn't find them particularly useful with this challenge. My blog is an ongoing effort to improve my understanding, so I update it as I learn more.

Extremely inspiring, actually this is what I’m doing right now

'I wanted the education not the school' I realize after going to school not retain so much and apply it properly. Also drop off maybe not the good solution, because have a degree still has a value to put in the resume

Awesome video and great presentation! all the best :)

Awesome. Well done, Scott. Fortune favors the bold!

For the first time speaking about the project that was a good talk.

the problem is when you need that piece of paper that says "degree" ...

Excellent talk, Scott! I also believe in self-education. College sounds to me like a place where you go because you "have to". And it is this have-to basis that always makes me think, "Why is it that you have to do things the way other people are doing it?" I think it's better to just listen to yourself and do what you think is right than doing something that others are doing.

YES! That is one benefit that has been helping me to learn faster and more effective!! The fast-forward and rewind button! And also the speed button, some lecturers talk very slow to my ear and it made me feel sleepy and get annoyed by how slow they are talking (sorry!), so I always put my online learning speed to 1.25x to 1.5x and it is soooooo much better!!!

On the OCW website you can view the curriculum for various degrees, so you can use that as a standard for what would be a good set of courses to take.

Great job Scott!

great author! I like him.because he not only share great choughts but also do it !Learning a 4-year computer science cource in 12 months without taking any class! I've known this plan in his blog for some time,and he's still working hard on it !!

Scott, I'm trying to follow your view by taking courses on Coursera -taking advantage of courses from universities around the world. Your point on doing this as 'Continue Education' is the way to go to stay up-to-date with changes in so many professional fields. Also, congratulation in learning languages while using NO English! I watched your videos on learning Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin and Korean. Again, you prove it can be done!

Thank you for a great and inspiring video.

Incredibly insightful and spot on. The benefits of being an entrepreneur of your own education (or the president of your own business of intelligence), should not put you in debt or suck the life out of you (i.e. waste your time, most people learn at different rates & methods) but should ultimately increase your worth.

Excellent talk

Great Job Scott!!

Solid talk, I've been thinking the exact same thing about the future of education... more remote learning, more modular coursework and fewer distractions, logistics and $$$$

Very helpful information. thanks

hey scott , nice to see you on TEDx.

this is honestly great.. i agree with the part where he says that coming to uni can be such a waste of time. i spend like 2~3 hours commuting every single day just to go to 3 lectures.. so much time wasted :( and by the time i get home im tired from all the commuting etc so i dont do much work. but a class in my uni decided to just do audio recording for the lectures (they're trying to force us to go to lectures) thats why im forced to go. sigh.

A video that is immortal! Wow Scott

I did exactly that in the last 3 years of my degree in Edinburgh Univeristy (Physics) - and with the time I saved by not going to lectures I got A LOT more time to study music and guitar. Some of my peers said they couldn't live without lectures, but I guess that for some people like it works better!

As a european its kinda funny to see people pay the price of a house for subpar education.

You were right. I too watch MIT OCW videos. 😁

Hi, I'm from a new university in collaboration with MIT, and I must agree to most of what was said. University is expensive. Not everyone can afford it comfortably. My university curriculum has similar content and rigor of MIT as MIT brought the majority of their courses to my uni. I use MIT open courseware extensively to master my topics. In some way, we are encouraged to use materials from MIT OCW to keep learning. It's part of a habit of life-long learning...

"Education hacking is the new trend" i like this quote :)

Fantastic speech!

I came here because of the book ultralearning. I was mindblown of the guy who learned and created a language from scratch. And the guy who's a musician that wants to be a public speaker, competed and actually won on a world championship for public speaking for just few months of ultralearning. 😱

Good video , I shared the video on my blog

Great talk Scott

Wonderful!

yep, i got that! thanks!

this what I've been saying since my first semester of college. I wish it didn't take me that long to realize formal education is a joke.

This talk is brilliant

I'm a huge of advocate of self education. I have nothing against college, I just never thrived in that environment. The thing about college is that they decide what pace you'll at. I often found that most classes moved too slow and a few moved a little too quickly. What's great about self education is that you can choose whatever pace suits you and it costs a fraction if anything that college does.

Love this!

Scott you are great. I decided to do the same not MIT but other top university. I always fear the universities will hide someday their curriculum from outside world. This is so great way for poor and who have not time to go school. The university of the people established based on this need and is missusing this need to their own benefit. Scott way is so much better

I need this challenge for my self,12 months to finish MIT's 4-year curriculum for computer science.