Last week, the Education Center of the Market Council that I’ve been collaborating with for almost six years published the announcement of my first author’s workshop. The workshop will take place at the Education Center office in Moscow on March 5th, 2020, in the Russian language.
Fuck courses?
I do not believe in courses, seminars, workshops, trainings, etc. The last time I attended a seminar was in the summer of 2007. I was studying SAS base, if I recall correctly. Punto, no more wasted time and money since that time. Self-education is much more efficient! I’ve been self-educating since 2006; I read articles, books, Ph.D. theses, and explore tons of MATLAB, R, and Python examples. But self-education requires strict discipline, consistency, and unpopular habits to exhaust your brain daily. Any volunteers? Not many, to be honest…
Despite my skepticism about courses, however, I’ve been participating in an educational process for almost six years with lectures about forecasting for the Wholesale Power Market of Russia.
Why have I been doing that?
Firstly, It’s a well-paid activity. Most educational centers pay their teachers for workshops and lectures at a fixed hourly rate — and the one I’ve been working with is not an exception.
Secondly, the aim of my lectures is not to teach my attendees, but to inspire them to self-educate afterward. I want them to learn something themselves! That’s why my long speeches are full of new terms and scientist’s names, vivid stories about the development of mathematical models and calculation tools, and names of inspiring books that made me excited when I read them.
Thirdly, and finally, in my teaching practice, I would like to help attendants to take their first steps in Python and neural networks. Nowadays, Python is probably the most powerful tool for data science problems, and neural networks are part of this trend too. To learn these two names from scratch by yourself is tough. Not many dare to undertake it. But when someone helps you to write and run several lines, it’s much easier to go on with new lines and new runs. And in the end, the very first lines could lead the bravest and most persistent ones to a new professional level of modeling practice in their jobs. This is the aim of my first author’s workshop.
Let’s see if I can manage it.