Student Feedback for the Neural Models Course

"This class is a theory of how the brain works down to the neural level, but related to and useful for everyday life. A student isn't expected to have a background in any brain or modeling related fields, however a student is expected to have used their own brain before :) and have some curiosity about how it works. As a result of taking this course, a student has a better understanding about how his/her own brain works, and although that knowledge may not be completely clear and precise (insofar as any theory of mind is incomplete), the student can *apply* that knowledge to real situations."

"After a year of graduate school, this is the best course I've ever taken. It's a true seminar: the more you put in, the more valuable it is (for everyone, including you). If you like to interfere in a course, you will like this one."

"Valuable things: The topics covered in the course should be of great interest to students working in AI and computer science in general. While in general we all know the mind does not work like a computer, this course actually provides a reasonable alternative to replace the computer analogy. The material is often presented as explicitly contrasting traditional AI techniques, and the contrast allows us to identify the shortcomings of AI as well as potential ways to meet those shortcomings."

"This is a course about a theory of how the brain works. Unlike other cog. sci. classes, this course is integrative and comprehensive. It is integrative in that everything taught in the course is related and grounded in a few basic concepts. It is comprehensive in that the proposed theory can be used to explain many different kinds of cognitive phenomena."

"This course presents a coherent hypothesis for how the mind learns and then uses what it has learned. ... This to me was the most unique part of the course -- this course is similar to other graduate courses that I've taken in terms of reading papers and discussion, but different in that the point is to present this coherent hypothesis."

".... this class presents one coherent hypothesis that aims to explain most of how the mind learns and thinks."

"I feel that this course is valuable in many ways, one of which is that it "practices what it preaches", in terms of a theory of learning and applying it in every class."


Last modified Friday, 14-Nov-2008 02:29:24 EST