5 ms·

I'm stunned... I've already signed up for ML, was thinking crypto, and now this? Some people dream of winning the lottery, I would be happy for a 6 month sabbat

I'm stunned... I've already signed up for ML, was thinking crypto, and now this? Some people dream of winning the lottery, I would be happy for a 6 month sabbatical from my full time job to immerse myself in these classes. I've currently taking the AI class and a enjoy it immensely. I feel the my 'bag of programming tools' has grown exponentially with all the stuff I'm learning.

Vivtek 15y ago
I'm taking ML now and it's pretty darned good.
- joeyespo 15y ago
  I wanted to take ML, but only really had enough time for AI. I was very happy to see that ML is having another semester. For those who can only afford to take one or two classes per semester, keep them coming!
- zura 15y ago
  ML class is good, but I'm bit disappointed regarding programming assignments - it is just a translation of the given math formulas to the Octave/MATLAB syntax.
  - signa11 15y ago
    but why ? if it is lack of maths, then you can work through derivations etc by following Christopher bishop's excellent 'neural network for pattern recognition'. for me though, the balance between theory and practice is just right. also, for some more fun you may want to check out Stanford's uldl page as well, which goes into unsupervised learning and deep-learning architectures.
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    While that's not an inaccurate representation, I think "just" translating the math to Octave/MATLAB's pretty powerful vector algebra language isn't as trivial as you seem to find it. I've had some seriously epiphanic moments. For me, at least, this class is striking a pretty good balance. Although I've been struck by the fact that they expect most people to do loop iteration until forced into vectorized concepts - I've been forcing myself to do it all as linear algebra from the start, as that's what I see as the point of the class.
    - signa11 15y ago
      yeah, that was kind of surprising for me as well. however, i have forced myself to submit only vectorized implementation for all exercises so far. yes, that includes the neural-networks examples as well ;)
  - brown9-2 15y ago
    I agree with your description but I'm not sure if I'd call it disappointing. However I think it'd be really exciting if the class offered some sort of final project where you had to use the algorithms on some new domain of your own choosing (although of course you don't need a class to do this on your own).
    - zura 15y ago
      Exactly, regarding final project or similar, where students could demonstrate some creativity and come up with original solutions. Actually, I put more emphasis in "bit" word, before "disappointed". But otherwise, it is really a great course - such an amount of practical information in such a short time.
    - Vivtek 15y ago
      The problem with that is it would require human intervention to grade. That's really not what this whole venture is about. Although it would be cool to organize a showcase of such projects spontaneously!
  - barik 15y ago
    I don't mind it. It's well known from teaching that reading about something and actually doing something (even if it is the same something) is incredibly important. I find that writing the MATLAB code, even if it's just translating a known formula, has helped my understanding of ML overall. On top of this, writing the Octave code lets me see line by line what the algorithm is doing as well, and it's a quick way to gain insight into the ML approaches by seeing exactly what each intermediate step is doing. Finally, even when it's a "translation" I find that it's not that trivial to do. Seeing a formula on a page and being able to write that as vectorized MATLAB code has also been an interesting challenge.
julsonl 15y ago
Hell, due to the amount of interesting courses they've been pumping out lately, I'm more inclined to take a whole year off just to study.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  Tempting, isn't it?
bhrgunatha 15y ago
I'm curious about the practical side of these courses as well as the intellectual side. How much time does the course use up? I expect everyone is different - so it's a personal question of your time. Are there homework assignments or exercises? How are the practical aspects handled for example with learning a programming language?
- julsonl 15y ago
  With regards to the current classes, it typically takes 2-3 hours to consume the lectures (unless you have ADHD like me). 20 minutes to finish weekly exercises. 1-2 hours to finish the programming exercises in the ML class. The ML class also gave a crash course in programming Octave, which handled any language issues you may have for that course. I took 2 classes, which is a huge time-sink (I can't even go through the textbooks). I think for a person with a full-time job, 1 course would be enough for a particular semester.
  - bhrgunatha 15y ago
    Thanks, I've signed up! I think I can spare enough time to make it worthwhile - reading the textbooks will probably be a stretch though.

Vivtek 15y ago

I'm taking ML now and it's pretty darned good.

joeyespo 15y ago
I wanted to take ML, but only really had enough time for AI. I was very happy to see that ML is having another semester. For those who can only afford to take one or two classes per semester, keep them coming!
zura 15y ago
ML class is good, but I'm bit disappointed regarding programming assignments - it is just a translation of the given math formulas to the Octave/MATLAB syntax.
- signa11 15y ago
  but why ? if it is lack of maths, then you can work through derivations etc by following Christopher bishop's excellent 'neural network for pattern recognition'. for me though, the balance between theory and practice is just right. also, for some more fun you may want to check out Stanford's uldl page as well, which goes into unsupervised learning and deep-learning architectures.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  While that's not an inaccurate representation, I think "just" translating the math to Octave/MATLAB's pretty powerful vector algebra language isn't as trivial as you seem to find it. I've had some seriously epiphanic moments. For me, at least, this class is striking a pretty good balance. Although I've been struck by the fact that they expect most people to do loop iteration until forced into vectorized concepts - I've been forcing myself to do it all as linear algebra from the start, as that's what I see as the point of the class.
  - signa11 15y ago
    yeah, that was kind of surprising for me as well. however, i have forced myself to submit only vectorized implementation for all exercises so far. yes, that includes the neural-networks examples as well ;)
- brown9-2 15y ago
  I agree with your description but I'm not sure if I'd call it disappointing. However I think it'd be really exciting if the class offered some sort of final project where you had to use the algorithms on some new domain of your own choosing (although of course you don't need a class to do this on your own).
  - zura 15y ago
    Exactly, regarding final project or similar, where students could demonstrate some creativity and come up with original solutions. Actually, I put more emphasis in "bit" word, before "disappointed". But otherwise, it is really a great course - such an amount of practical information in such a short time.
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    The problem with that is it would require human intervention to grade. That's really not what this whole venture is about. Although it would be cool to organize a showcase of such projects spontaneously!
- barik 15y ago
  I don't mind it. It's well known from teaching that reading about something and actually doing something (even if it is the same something) is incredibly important. I find that writing the MATLAB code, even if it's just translating a known formula, has helped my understanding of ML overall. On top of this, writing the Octave code lets me see line by line what the algorithm is doing as well, and it's a quick way to gain insight into the ML approaches by seeing exactly what each intermediate step is doing. Finally, even when it's a "translation" I find that it's not that trivial to do. Seeing a formula on a page and being able to write that as vectorized MATLAB code has also been an interesting challenge.

julsonl 15y ago

Hell, due to the amount of interesting courses they've been pumping out lately, I'm more inclined to take a whole year off just to study.

Vivtek 15y ago
Tempting, isn't it?

bhrgunatha 15y ago

I'm curious about the practical side of these courses as well as the intellectual side. How much time does the course use up? I expect everyone is different - so it's a personal question of your time. Are there homework assignments or exercises? How are the practical aspects handled for example with learning a programming language?

julsonl 15y ago
With regards to the current classes, it typically takes 2-3 hours to consume the lectures (unless you have ADHD like me). 20 minutes to finish weekly exercises. 1-2 hours to finish the programming exercises in the ML class. The ML class also gave a crash course in programming Octave, which handled any language issues you may have for that course. I took 2 classes, which is a huge time-sink (I can't even go through the textbooks). I think for a person with a full-time job, 1 course would be enough for a particular semester.
- bhrgunatha 15y ago
  Thanks, I've signed up! I think I can spare enough time to make it worthwhile - reading the textbooks will probably be a stretch though.