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MIT 6.042J Mathematics for Computer Science: study plan and how long it takes

The MIT OpenCourseWare playlist is 111 videos and 18.8 hours long. Here's how long it takes at different paces, a week-by-week schedule built from the real videos, and a planner that turns it into your own daily plan.

111 videos · 18.8 hours · MIT OpenCourseWare

MIT 6.042J (Spring 2015) teaches the discrete maths computer scientists need: proofs and induction, logic, sets, number theory and cryptography, graph theory and colouring, sums and asymptotics, counting, and discrete probability through to random walks and PageRank.

The course is split into short videos by topic, with some marked optional, and the free textbook is on MIT OpenCourseWare.

Who it's for: CS students and self-learners who want a rigorous foundation in proofs and discrete maths.

How long does it take?

The full playlist is 18.8 hours across 111 videos. Here's roughly how many days that is at different daily watch times and speeds, counting video time only:

Days to finish the playlist by daily watch time and playback speed
Daily timeAt 1xAt 1.5xAt 2x
30 min a day38 days26 days19 days
1 h a day19 days13 days10 days
2 h a day10 days7 days5 days

Make your own schedule

The playlist link is already filled in. Press Plan, set how much time you have each day and your speed, and you'll get a day-by-day schedule with a finish date and a calendar file. It reads the live playlist, so new videos are included.

Open on YouTube Track watched videos

Week-by-week schedule

A sample plan at 1 hour a day and normal speed, using whole videos so none is split across days. That's 3 weeks in total. For a different pace, start date or speed, use the planner above.

Week 1Videos 1–36 · 6h 34m

  1. Day 1 · 51m

    • 11.1.1 Welcome to 6.0422m
    • 21.1.2 Intro to Proofs: Part 110m
    • 31.1.3 Intro to Proofs: Part 27m
    • 41.2.1 Proof by Contradiction8m
    • 51.2.3 Proof by Cases7m
    • 61.3.1 Well Ordering Principle 1: Video6m
    • 71.3.3 Well Ordering Principle 2: Video5m
    • 81.3.5 Well Ordering Principle 3: Video6m

  2. Day 2 · 57m

    • 91.4.1 Propositional Operators: Video9m
    • 101.4.3 Digital Logic: Video10m
    • 111.4.4 Truth Tables: Video13m
    • 121.5.1 Predicate Logic 1: Video13m
    • 131.5.2 Predicate Logic 2: Video12m

  3. Day 3 · 55m

    • 141.5.4 Predicate Logic 3: Video9m
    • 151.6.1 Sets Definitions: Video12m
    • 161.6.2 Sets Operations: Video9m
    • 171.7.1 Relations: Video25m

  4. Day 4 · 57m

    • 181.7.3 Relational Mappings: Video9m
    • 191.7.5 Finite Cardinality: Video11m
    • 201.8.1 Induction: Video22m
    • 211.8.2 Bogus Induction: Video5m
    • 221.8.4 Strong Induction: Video10m

  5. Day 5 · 59m

    • 231.8.6 WOP vs Induction: Video [optional]8m
    • 241.9.1 State Machines Invariants: Video26m
    • 251.9.3 Derived Variables: Video6m
    • 261.10.1 Recursive Data: Video13m
    • 271.10.4 Structural Induction: Video6m

  6. Day 6 · 57m

    • 281.10.7 Recursive Functions: Video14m
    • 291.11.1 Cardinality: Video13m
    • 301.11.3 Countable Sets: Video10m
    • 311.11.4 Cantor's Theorem: Video20m

  7. Day 7 · 58m

    • 321.11.7 The Halting Problem: Video [Optional]16m
    • 331.11.9 Russell's Paradox: Video13m
    • 341.11.11 Set Theory Axioms: Video [Optional]9m
    • 352.1.1 GCDs & Linear Combinations: Video10m
    • 362.1.2 Euclidean Algorithm: Video10m
Week 2Videos 37–78 · 6h 22m

  1. Day 8 · 49m

    • 372.1.4 Pulverizer: Video12m
    • 382.1.6 Revisiting Die Hard: Video5m
    • 392.1.7 Prime Factorization: Video8m
    • 402.2.1 Congruence mod n: Video13m
    • 412.2.3 Inverses mod n: Video4m
    • 422.3.1 Modular Exponentiation Euler's Function: Video6m

  2. Day 9 · 56m

    • 432.3.3 The Ring Z: Video17m
    • 442.4.1 RSA Public Key Encryption: Video22m
    • 452.4.3 Reducing Factoring To SAT: Video7m
    • 462.5.1 Digraphs: Walks & Paths: Video4m
    • 472.5.3 Digraphs: Connected Vertices: Video7m

  3. Day 10 · 59m

    • 482.6.1 DAGs: Video11m
    • 492.6.3 Scheduling: Video13m
    • 502.6.5 Time versus Processors: Video10m
    • 512.7.1 Partial Orders: Video11m
    • 522.7.3 Representing Partial Orders As Subset Relations: Video7m
    • 532.7.4 Equivalence Relations: Video7m

  4. Day 11 · 58m

    • 542.8.1 Degree: Video11m
    • 552.8.3 Isomorphism: Video11m
    • 562.9.1 Coloring: Video16m
    • 572.9.3 Connectivity: Video3m
    • 582.9.4 k-Connectivity: Video8m
    • 592.10.1 Trees: Video8m

  5. Day 12 · 46m

    • 602.10.3 Tree Coloring: Video2m
    • 612.10.5 Spanning Trees: Video11m
    • 622.11.1 Stable Matching: Video11m
    • 632.11.2 Matching Ritual: Video9m
    • 642.11.5 Optimal Stable Matching: Video9m
    • 652.11.7 Bipartite Matching4m

  6. Day 13 · 53m

    • 662.11.9 Hall's Theorem16m
    • 673.1.1 Arithmetic Sums: Video4m
    • 683.1.3 Geometric Sums: Video11m
    • 693.1.5 Book Stacking: Video8m
    • 703.1.7 Integral Method: Video10m
    • 713.1.9 Stirling's Formula: Video6m

  7. Day 14 · 1h

    • 723.2.1 Asymptotic Notation: Video8m
    • 733.2.3 Asymptotic Properties: Video10m
    • 743.2.6 Asymptotic Blunders5m
    • 753.3.1 Sum And Product Rules: Video7m
    • 763.3.3 Counting with Bijections: Video12m
    • 773.4.1 Generalized Counting Rules: Video10m
    • 783.4.3 Two Pair Poker Hands: Video8m
Week 3Videos 79–111 · 5h 51m

  1. Day 15 · 38m

    • 793.4.4 Binomial Theorem: Video6m
    • 803.4.5 Multinomial Theorem: Video8m
    • 813.5.1 The Pigeonhole Principle: Video4m
    • 823.5.3 Inclusion-Exclusion Example: Video13m
    • 833.5.4 Inclusion-Exclusion 2 Sets: Video7m

  2. Day 16 · 59m

    • 844.1.1 Tree Model: Video25m
    • 854.1.3 Simplified Monty Hall Tree: Video8m
    • 864.1.5 Sample Spaces: Video10m
    • 874.2.1 Conditional Probability Definitions: Video12m
    • 884.2.3 Law of Total Probability: Video4m

  3. Day 17 · 45m

    • 894.2.5 Bayes' Theorem: Video12m
    • 904.2.7 Monty Hall Problem: Video9m
    • 914.3.1 Independence: Video4m
    • 924.3.3 Mutual Independence: Video8m
    • 934.4.1 Bigger Number Game: Video12m

  4. Day 18 · 55m

    • 944.4.2 Random Variables: Independence: Video16m
    • 954.4.4 Random Variables: Uniform & Binomial: Video12m
    • 964.5.1 Expectation: Video19m
    • 974.5.3 Expected Number Of Heads: Video5m
    • 984.5.5 Total Expectation: Video4m

  5. Day 19 · 57m

    • 994.5.7 Mean Time to Failure: Video11m
    • 1004.5.9 Linearity of Expectation: Video19m
    • 1014.6.1 Deviation From The Mean: Video8m
    • 1024.6.3 Markov Bounds: Video9m
    • 1034.6.5 Chebyshev Bounds: Video10m

  6. Day 20 · 48m

    • 1044.6.7 Variance: Video15m
    • 1054.7.1 Law Of Large Numbers: Video14m
    • 1064.7.3 Independent Sampling Theorem: Video7m
    • 1074.7.5 Birthday Matching: Video12m

  7. Day 21 · 51m

    • 1084.7.7 Sampling & Confidence: Video13m
    • 1094.8.1 Random Walks: Video11m
    • 1104.8.2 Stationary Distributions: Video16m
    • 1114.8.3 Page Rank: Video11m

Tips for finishing

  • Videos marked [Optional] can be ticked off in the playlist length calculator so the planner skips them.
  • Work through problems from the course text; proofs only improve with practice.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to finish MIT 6.042J Mathematics for Computer Science?

The playlist has 111 videos and 18.8 hours of content. At 1 hour a day that's about 19 days at normal speed, or 13 days at 1.5x. At 2 hours a day it's about 10 days.

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