Having spent some time working on my Masters course work, I have grown quite disillusioned with the process. For some reason, I had the view that a masters program would be going in to latest cyber security and emerging technologies. However we are spending time on slides on theory that has been static for 20 years and lecturers struggling to get through the first hour of a 3 hour lecture, just to get to a few sessions of students discussing with each other for the remaining 2 hours. The teachings and discussions are common sense for anyone who has been in cyber security for a few years so it is mostly a waste of time.
Anyway, then comes the assignment that is worded so broadly and with a word limit of 3000 words, the only reason to have been done in such a way must be so they cannot be blamed for however the markers decide to mark the assignment. The question asks to describe so many different component that just repeating those topics would remove a significant potion of the word count available.
It is easy to see that these courses does not provide anywhere near the value they charge. Fortunately I have joined through an apprenticeship scheme where the cost (around £20K) comes from a levy that the government charges my employer. If it is not used, the amount goes to the government anyway so I think everyone is happy to keep the status quo going. I would have been furious if I had paid more than £1000 for this for the knowledge. In the end through, I would get a certificate and would only cost my time so it is fine. Just carry on with maintaining an incredibly inefficient system going as it servers everyone directly involved.
Now to get to the actual point of this, I just realised how much more efficient to actually learn from ChatGPT than from the lecturers or material provided. Rather than waffling on and on about tangentially related stuff, ChatGPT gets straight to the point on what the actual theory/models are and how it is applied to a given scenario. It is incredibly eye opening to see and have the light bulb moment where it clicks, “Oh this is what is about and how to use it!”.
ChatGPT nicely summarizes the actual gist of the theory and directly applies it to a relatable context, as long as you can ask the question the right way. Once you get the concepts, ofcourse you can work with your own scenario to write it with your own ideas and words.
This is incredibly exciting to see. It is like having your own tutor who is extremely knowledgeable and good at condensing information so you learn what you need and not spend 80% of the time on unrelated matter. From what I have learned about Large Language Models, I didn’t realise it could be so customized to what an individual needs but I must say, I am a convert now.