Berkeley/Stanford/etc. DeFi MOOC - My Review: by John D. Villarreal

Berkeley/Stanford/etc. DeFi MOOC - My Review: by John D. Villarreal

John D. Villarreal, JD, MBA, MA John D. Villarreal, JD, MBA, MA

John D. Villarreal, JD, MBA, MA

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发布日期: 2022年1月15日
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DeFi MOOC (Berkeley, Stanford, Imperial College London, et al)

Elite Cutting-Edge Blockchain, DeFi, Crypto Education

My Experience, Comments, and Take-Aways

By

John D. Villarreal

Introduction and Why I Wanted to Take this Class

I have a lot of friends and contacts in the blockchain, DeFi, crypto, and finance spaces from policymakers to academia to venture capital to hedge funds to startups.?From the greater Washington D.C. area to Silicon Valley to New York to Miami and internationally.?Most of them told me, in my opinion “IMO,” this is an increasingly important space and you really need to learn, if not be involved in this area somehow, it’s really “heating up.”?

??????????I have always loved technology and venture/entrepreneurship and have been involved in those spaces most of my life.?So, any new cool/important tech, I want to learn all about.?I heard about the DeFi MOOC, which was being offered free to the world (in conjunction with a DeFi course at my alma matter, U.C. Berkeley), in the fall semester of 2021, as a collaborative effort by some of the top universities around the world in this space such as U.C. Berkeley, Stanford, Imperial College of London, University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign (“UIUC”), and more (guest lecturers, fireside chats etc.): https://defi-learning.org/ (DeFi-learning.org, 2022).

??????????While excited about this class, I was also slightly cautious.?The main subject matter was extreme tech (with some finance, economics, and policy-regulatory issues/topics), and almost all the professors were from computer science or engineering.?I am a double-alumni of Berkeley and know the elite-level of academics there.?Berkeley computer-science is tied with Stanford, MIT, and Carnegie-Mellon for #1 in the World followed right behind by UIUC: https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings (US News & World Report, 2022b).?Berkeley and Stanford also enjoy top 3 spots in the world with MIT for engineering: https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/eng-rankings (US News & World Report, 2022a).?Moreover, some of the professors and TA’s are literally writing some of the leading publications in this space:

While I may be very smart and hold 3 graduate degrees from some of the best universities in the world, including Berkeley, and always love to constantly learn new things and expand my limits/abilities, I know what I don’t know, know my (current) limits, and am no fool.?Berkeley/Stanford comp sci, let alone DeFi/crypto programming IMO can be extremely-to-insanely challenging if you are not from that world/that level and not prepared, etc.?That’s not my world.

So, while students (and myself if I correctly recall IMO) were assured this was an interdisciplinary course open to all and I saw several non-techies in the Discord chats, I was not disillusioned, I figured at some point in the semester, I would not be surprised to find myself (with my fellow non-programming students) in deep waters at some point if the focus shifted to comp-sci, etc., which it did (more on that further ahead).?First, let’s go through a basic setup for the course and what my experience was below.

Class Setup/Logistics

??????????The class was held live and asynchronously online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX3mc83CJtQ (DeFi MOOC, 2021).?The main page was a website which had the information about the course, logistics, some announcements and links to study materials/lectures and assignments : https://defi-learning.org/?(DeFi Learning.org, 2021).?The course also had a Discord: https://discord.com/channels/875005619155918928/877187339548500058 and thousands of students: https://twitter.com/dawnsongtweets/status/1473333692835647489?cxt=HHwWgsCq0YDMqvIoAAAA (Dawn Song, 2021b).?What was amazing was the Discord was very active and the professors encouraged the students to help each other and learn together (which was critical as this was super-hard cutting-edge material IMO and I am sure this also help administer the course and not have the teaching staff field potentially 100’s to 1000’s of emails).?It was really cool interacting with students from all over the world on these subjects.?The focus was really collaborative and learning together, as opposed to grades and competitive IMO.?I think the setup was very clever in this respect and allowed the class to scale well to handle that many students.

??????????Almost each week there was a quiz and there were two labs.?The labs you had more time to complete, but you needed it.?Having this format helped ensure you learned along the way and have a benchmark of how much you have learned, or what you may want to review.

Topics Covered – Summary

??????????The course was indeed interdisciplinary and covered a rage of topic from the history and background of decentralized finance, blockchain technology and crypto and comparing that to traditional/centralized finance: https://berkeley-defi.github.io/assets/material/lec1-dawn-defi-mooc-intro-defi-f21.pdf (Dawn Song, 2021a).?This set up a conceptual framework for the class.?There were many other topics covered including (in no particular order):

The class was very in-depth and covered a range of topics well.?Having this number of elite professors teaching this course allowed a broad range and depth of subject matter.

Blockchain Programming – Cutting-Edge and Seriously Hard

??????????As previously mentioned, even though IMO the syllabus didn’t explicitly say we would have to program at some point in the course and the course said it was designed for all students (cross-disciplinary) and we were assured that non-computer science/programmer students could complete the course, I wasn’t too surprised to later find that, “surprise!” we would be programming.?Without getting into too much detail, suffice it to say that soon I spent somewhere around 20-30+ hours, if I recall correctly IMO, and was deep into blockchain programming a “flash loan” “smart contract” using Docker, Solidity, Alchemy, and Visual Studio.?It was crazy and crazy difficult, lol.?I’m sure there were avid blockchain/crypto programmers in class that were likely no Experienced programmers were feeling the pain on Discord.?There was a general sense among some on Discord IMO that this was not so much the academic/computer science “deep end,” this was the Mariana Trench.

??????????Once again, collaboration was the name of the game and even I was able to assist other students on Discord (per the instructors’ request/instructions and appreciation for those that helped IMO) and was a somewhat leading voice on Discord.?Pretty crazy.?More importantly, the teaching staff were adept at being able to “land the plane” for all students while being quite fair to the various skill levels, effort, and achievements of various students IMO.

??????????This definitely was an amazing experience and was a “full immersion” crash course on blockchain programming.?While not always fun, looking back, you really couldn’t ask for any less from such an elite-level course on the subject taught by leaders in the field.?Will this turn me into a full-blown blockchain programmer??I doubt it, but this class certainly gives me a much greater understanding of the entire field that I already had some decent knowledge in IMO.?This was a top-level course that I am glad I challenged myself to take.

Summary

Pro:

  • Elite-level course in a cutting-edge subject taught by leading professors at the best universities in the world in this subject.
  • The class was free.
  • Online and asynchronous (could be done on your schedule).
  • Engagement with fellow students.
  • Great depth and range of content.
  • Major critical skills and knowledge gained in blockchain, DeFi and crypto from this course.

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Con:

  • Some of the materials could have been a little clearer/more precise IMO.
  • Due to the structure of the MOOC course, it really had a “sink or swim” aspect to the learning.?Discord was certainly helpful, but it was definitely incumbent on the learner to study hard and stay very disciplined in a such a course.
  • Heavy workload in certain areas.
  • Extreme challenge if you are not an experienced blockchain programmer IMO, but you can still finish the class and Discord will help you.
  • It would have been good to learn/hear more about business, finance, venture, regulatory and policy issues and predictions (along with associated coursework) as this has such a big impact on the space.

All-in-all, a fantastic course that was free and open to the public, which is a credit to the great instructors and the amazing universities they work at.?I am glad I took this course and learned a lot.?If you would like to learn more about the course you can see the course website here: https://defi-learning.org/.

?

Additionally, here is a video of my review of the course: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/johndvillarreal_berkeley-defi-mooc-with-stanford-etc-activity-6887905009116295168-fn2W (Villarreal, 2022)

?

Disclaimer: this post was part of an assignment for the course.?However, these thoughts and opinions shared in this post are my true thoughts and opinions.

As always, everything said here is all my opinion and experience only and I’m not alleging any facts, casting any aspersions, or giving any advice. Everything you do in life is at your own risk.

?

References

Berkeley.edu. (N.D.). Publications (for Professor Dawn Song). https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dawnsong/publication.html

Crypto.Stanford.Edu. (2018, August). Dan Boneh’s Publications. https://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/pubs/pubs.html

DeFi Learning. (2021-2022). DeFi Learning [Discord Channel].?Discord. https://discord.com/channels/875005619155918928/877187339548500058

Defi-learning.org. (2021, Fall). Decentralized Finance. https://defi-learning.org/

DeFi MOOC. (2021a, August 26). DeFi Lecture 1: Introduction and Overview of DeFi.?YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX3mc83CJtQ

DeFi MOOC. (2021b, December 9). Lecture 14 Premier: Regulatory Issues with DeFi. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiOnheyxA6E

Gervais, A. (2020). Selected Academic Publications. https://arthurgervais.com/publications.html

Illinois.edu. (N.D.). Andrew Miller. https://soc1024.ece.illinois.edu/

Miller, A. (2021, September 9). Introduction to Smart Contracts {Powerpoint presentation]. Github. https://berkeley-defi.github.io/assets/material/Lecture%203%20Slides.pdf

Parlour, C. (2021, September 16). Traditional Finance [Powerpoint presentation]. Github. https://berkeley-defi.github.io/assets/material/Lecture%204%20Slides.pdf

Song D. (2021a, August 26). Introduction and Overview of DeFi [Powerpoint presentation]. Github. https://berkeley-defi.github.io/assets/material/lec1-dawn-defi-mooc-intro-defi-f21.pdf

Song, D. (2021b, Dec 21). “Huge thanks to the thousands of learners worldwide . . .” [Twitter post]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/dawnsongtweets/status/1473333692835647489?cxt=HHwWgsCq0YDMqvIoAAAA

US News & World Report (2022a). 2022 Best Engineering Schools. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/eng-rankings

US News & World Report (2022b). Best Computer Science Schools. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings

Villarreal, J. (2022, January 14). Berkeley DeFi MOOC (with Stanford, Etc.) – My Review. LinkedIn [live video post]. https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/johndvillarreal_berkeley-defi-mooc-with-stanford-etc-activity-6887905009116295168-fn2W

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