My Machine Learning Path

With a Decent GPU in place, I think I’m ready to start on this Journey that I have been aiming for since freshman year.

This is a landmark. Marking my learning path for the Next 2 years.

Sorry Humanity, But I’m on the side of our Robot Overlords. In all honesty, I’ve been a CS nerd since School.

The Dream

I’m an undergrad student. Studying CS from a highly reputed university in My Country. I love Machine Learning. I’ve been a fan of Computer Vision and its applications.

I want to build our AI Overlords.

I’m not in it for The Hype. I genuinely enjoy building Projects related to ML. I love blogging about ML.

I haven’t shipped a single Product yet, someday I hope to do so. But my Dream is to Become better in the Field.

I won’t dare say a Master, because there are way better people than me.

My Journey so Far

I come from a college that even though is highly reputed, doesn’t have any courses or any Project recognition related to the field. Internet to the Rescue!

I’m not an exact beginner, I’ve taken up Learning resources earlier, Neither am I a new coder- I’ve taken up a few programming courses in my College. But I feel I haven’t “Done” much, only learnt materials.

I have Outstanding Grade(s) on my coding Subjects but I don’t have any experience of working in production (Except for Intern Projects, but those are minor ones-Not Major production Projects)

I dislike my traditional college courses. To be fair-all colleges have the same curriculum. Most of colleges take time to catch up with the field.

The Plan

I’m in my Pre-Final year and I hope to dedicate as much time for the next 2 years, to doing Machine Learning (And If I dare say, Deep Learning), paying lesser attention to college grades and instead try to materialise knowledge into something. My intent is to take an year’s gap from studies after I graduate, and teach myself what is necessary before considering higher studies/a job. (This is very rare in my country and It’s a rebellious step)

So Why am I sharing a beginner’s approach publicly?

I’m inspired and at the same time overwhelmed by all the experts out there.

I’m inspired because I want to be like the Kaggle GrandMasters or the Amazing Researchers.

I’m Overwhelmed because I feel I’m far from that.

Via My Blog, I hope to document my Journey and at the same time use it as a a check on How well can I explain something I’ve just learnt.

Here is the rough plan I’ve come up with:

• Fast AI MOOC: RE-CREATE the notebooks and not just hit Shift+Enter. Experiment the same on different datasets and on archived competitions on here.
• After FAST AI, start joining competitions.
• Start Deep Learning.ai alongside for sound fundamentals.
• Set a goal to make 2 submissions this year that land in top 25%. (Even in a playground competition. I know I’m a beginner and I’m setting a goal, I may or may not achieve this)

This public post will keep me accountable to myself and I’m sharing it publicly so that I can’t quit.

I, hereby solemnly swear to take up my plan, very seriously for Almost full time or whatever hours my school lets me live for.

Also, Now that I’ve made this Public-There is no going back.

I hope I’ll live up to the Promise. But I’ll leave you to be the Judge of that.

I know saying is easier said that done, I’ll have to fail and lose sleep for many nights. But Like I mentioned, I’m a Nerd. There’s nothing else I’d rather do.

If you found my plan interesting and would like to stay in touch, you can find me on Twitter here.