Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ask Slashdot: How To Get Into Machine Learning?

Posted by samzenpus on from the starting-over dept.

An anonymous reader writes: I know this is a vague question, but hoping to get some useful feedback anyway. I'm an experienced SW Engineer/Developer who is looking to get into the Machine Learning arena. I have an MS in CS and a solid 15 years of experience in a variety of areas, but no experience in Machine Learning.With that as background, my question is: What is the most time-efficient (and reasonable cost) way to:
(1) Decide whether Machine Learning is for me and
(2) Make myself employable in the field.
An additional constraint is that I can't afford to quit my full-time day job. Thanks.

5 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Certification? by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 4, Informative

    Have you considered online education towards a certificate in machine learning? For example, The University of Washington, via Coursera, offers a certificate in Machine Learning after about 30 weeks of study and a capstone project. You'll need some background in statistics, and familiarity with Python, and you'll have to put in several hours a week. Total cost is about $500.

    --
    Finding God in a Dog
  2. Coursera, Andrew Ng by Billy+the+Mountain · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sign up for Coursera and take Andrew Ng's Machine Learning course. It's excellent (took it twice).

    --
    That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
  3. Stanford Online Learning by SJrX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I might recommend the following along with the associated free textbook: https://lagunita.stanford.edu/... Textbook: http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth... Afterwards you can look at the more advanced free textbook: http://statweb.stanford.edu/~t...

  4. Time Efficiency is the answer by BoRegardless · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Turn off the TV. Go into online learning fast & hard.

    Bust your ass and eventually join some of the OSS project/s and volunteer to help.

    It gets your name out there and the right people do notice that.

  5. Re:Coursera by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

    MIT has a good free intro to AI and ML by Patrick Winston. I watched it for an hour a day while I was on the treadmill. I learned a lot, and burned off a few pounds.

    You should also learn CUDA and/or OpenCL. That will not only help you with ML, but also with any other HPC, and make you more employable.