My 2023 Learning Journey in Review
On this last day of 2023, I want to reflect on my learning journey this year. As the adage goes, "The end of one journey is the beginning of the next". In June 2023, I not only finished my PhD in Physics from the University of California, Irvine with the culmination of my thesis on the dynamical mass measurements of supermassive black holes, but I also started a new and independent learning journey.
Admittedly, this journey was motivated by the desire (more so the need) to get a job. I decided academia was not for me, and one of the main reasons was the constraints it placed on my ability to learn (being unable to get a postdoc was also a big reason). Sure, I learned to a depth where I became a supposed expert on my dissertation topic, but during the past 6 years I felt there were many other topics of interest I had to forego learning to complete my PhD. Reading the same types of papers on the same concepts for 5+ years had made me too narrow. I personally feel that I thrive when I get to engage with many different ideas and topics, as opposed to sticking with just one or a few. Then, I found Coursera (I promise I am not sponsored by them; I swear!).
Coursera to me was a return to a mode of learning I was familiar with and that I enjoyed: Online video courses. You see, I attribute much of my success in academic environments to my vast consumption of YouTube educators during YouTube’s infancy. To me, watching creators like KhanAcademy, PatrickJMT, Doc Schuster, and many others in high school made learning FUN. I could go at my own pace, pause when I needed time to absorb things, and rewatch their videos as many times as I needed to finally make the topic stick in my brain. I am not and have never been someone who quickly absorbs new material. For example, it took me 3 separate course (2 in high school, 1 in college) that featured Newtonian Mechanics before I felt I truly “got it” and felt confident enough to switch my major to Physics. I remember watching PatrickJMT and KhanAcademy for hours the night before Math exams in college and having it pay academic dividends.
After 6 months of using it, I can say with confidence that Coursera has made learning fun for me again. I started with the magnificent Machine Learning (ML) Specialization course taught by Andrew Ng, one of Coursera’s Co-Founders, and a titan in the ML community, since I felt that deepening my knowledge in this area would be important for the current times that we live in. This course did not disappoint. I would even go as far to say that I would not have the job I have now if I did not take this course. The ML Specialization course was like a new source of food for my brain, which had been strictly on a supermassive black hole diet for several years. And, as an object in motion tends to stay in motion without an external force to slow it down, I felt that with my PhD behind me, there were no external forces (aka academic obligations) to slow my new learning journey’s momentum.
Learning has and will always be a solace for me. I especially needed it this year. Many of you reading may not know this, but my 2023 was additionally complicated with health issues that started in May and persisted through both the Summer and Fall seasons. Now, as we approach a New Year, I am happy to say these issues have largely been resolved, though I remain diligent to this day in making sure these issues do not return. To distract me from the daily pains I felt over the course of several months, I started other Coursera courses to help keep my mind occupied on novel and fascinating ideas, as well as develop new skills. This was preferable than allowing it to wander and focusing on the despair that often accompanied my pain.
As 2023 ends, I want to use this post as a way for me to look back and say, “Wow, I did all of that in half a year?!”. I also want to use this post to encourage people to actively seek out the joy that comes with learning. Whether it is a new skill like computer programming, learning a recipe for a certain dish you have always been curious to try, or nailing a skateboarding trick that has tripped you up in the past, please embrace the challenge it poses! Most importantly, have fun with the process, as even when it feels we are lost, it is through the joy of discovery that we truly find ourselves.
Coursera Courses I’ve Taken in 2023:
1. Machine Learning Specialization by DeepLearning.AI + Stanford University
2. IBM Data Science Specialization
3. Remote Sensing Image Acquisition, Analysis, and Applications by UNSW Sydney
4. Introduction to High-Performance and Parallel Computing by University of Colorado, Boulder
5. Natural Language Processing on Google Cloud by Google