I would recommend joining an ML-centric company in an ML infrastructure role, and get real-world experience that way. (Example industries to look at: self drivi

I would recommend joining an ML-centric company in an ML infrastructure role, and get real-world experience that way. (Example industries to look at: self driving car companies, spam & abuse departments of major companies, data labeling firms, ML consulting firms). Ideally you want to work with as many ML engineers as you can. Classes and independent study are great, but a lot of these companies want to hire experienced folks for ML roles, so once you have picked up some basics from independent study it's helpful to get an _ML adjacent_ role to help you start moving laterally toward the ML engineer position you want.