Hi, my name is Christine! I’ve always been interested in AI, but I chose to tattoo as a career. Now I’m starting from square one to see if my passion for AI can evolve into a job I love more. Any advice would be great! Mainly interested in RLHF, NLP, machine learning. Currently learning python.
Also seeking a mentorship… doesn’t hurt to ask =) Thanks for reading!
That’s a vital first step. Kudos!
How are your math skills? That will determine what level of math to brush-up on (if anything).
Thanks for the reply 
My math is rusty but I did take calculus in college. That was a long time ago… I don’t remember any of it. But I’d say my algebra and trigonometry are still decent? Do you think I’ll need to know calculus/statistics?
That’s totally sufficient.
The only statistics you really need to understand are simple probabilities (like when rolling dice), and what a standard deviation is.
If you’re enrolled in a beginning-level course (like the Machine Learning Specialization), the instructor will refresh all of the information you need.
Perfect! Thank you! After learning Python, I definitely want to dive into a machine learning course. Unfortunately I have limited time with my current job, so I can only do one course at a time. Are there any other focuses besides machine learning I need/should learn generally to enter the field?
Of course there is no guarantee that you can go directly from taking the courses here to a full-time job in some ML related field, but having good programming knowledge plus the courses here is a good start. Once you’ve done that or in parallel with the later course work it’s also a good idea to start working on applying ML to particular problems (e.g. by working on Kaggle challenges or something analogous to that).
The basic path is to take MLS first (the Machine Learning Specialization), followed by DLS (the Deep Learning Specialization) and then take a look at either the TF specializations or the more application specific specializations like NLP or GANs. Note that I don’t think there are any of the long courses here that go into RL in any detail at least that I’ve encountered so far.
“Machine Learning” is the broad general topic.
“AI” is a catch-all marketing phrase that includes advanced ML methods.
A superficial treatment of Reinforcement Learning was recently added to the final week of MLS Course 3.
It’s more of a “Gee whiz!” demonstration of a very complex method.
Thanks so much for the input! I’m totally get it, I know this is just baseline stuff that I’m trying to learn before delving into anything deeper that’ll actually get me closer to the knowledge I need to do any ML related work. Definitely will look into working on something like Kaggle challenges. That’s great advice.
I also have been taking classes across a few platforms so hopefully can dive into more specifics that way. Thanks again for the advice and I will be looking into everything you said!
Oooooh nice! Good to know they added that course, and definitely need to look into that. Even if it’s a superficial treatment, still good for a beginner like me haha. And it’ll help me figure out the specifics of what I need to look into further. Thanks so much for your thoughts!!