My journey and career transformation from mechanical engineer to machine learning scientist, and lessons learned
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash
Artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, internet of things etc. is the buzzword from the last few years. If someone in the strategy, business or IT consulting, doesn’t know at least the basics of it then I guess they are pretty much redundant.
To keep up with the waves two years back, I decided to get acquainted with machine learning and deep learning.
Many of us want to make a career change to machine learning/AI or come from non-science background hence find it challenging to gain the requisite knowledge. In this article, I am going to share my journey and evolution with resources which helped me to gain knowledge in this area. I hope it will provide insight and help you to structure your learning path.
My Challenges
I studied mechanical engineering 20 years ago. Engineering degree prepared me to think systematically in a rational way. I did advanced calculus and linear algebra in my engineering my I forgot most of the concepts over the years. It became evident very soon that I need to learn a number of things as a pre-requisite even before starting to learn ABC of the machine or deep learning.
- Brush up the concepts in linear algebra, calculus and probability
- Learn basic statistics
- Select the primary language
- Learning Map
I didn’t have the energy to read the mathematics textbooks, hence to revise I watched the videos on linear algebra, calculus and probability on Khan Academy and MIT open courseware. I will especially recommend the lectures by Prof. Gilbert Strang.
I zeroed down to python as my primary programming language because of the vast libraries and developer support.
Once I have revised the mathematical concepts, then I started with Python. I have done programming before with C language, and I was already aware of the concept of looping, conditional statement etc.
I found the book “Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming “ by Eric Matthes very helpful to get a grasp on syntax and basic concepts. The other book which I used to hone my basic python skill is “Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, 2nd Edition: Practical Programming for Total Beginners” by Al Sweigart.
#data-science #python #machine-learning #deep-learning #programming