A Pathway to Machine Learning and AI for Mechanical Engineers.
The post heading says ‘for Mechanical engineers’ but this post is for everyone from non-computer science background e.g. electrical and civil engineers. During the past few months, many people have contacted me on LinkedIn and other social media platforms asking how they can start to learn Machine Learning being from a non-programming background.
As a Mechanical engineer, when I started my journey of Machine learning, I was not sure of where to start and what to learn. I had a lot of confusion and doubts in mind which was un-answered at that time. And I did not found even a single blog on how one can start with ML and data science if he has no prior knowledge of programming. In this blog, I am capturing all the courses I took, the books I read, YouTube channels I followed, etc to learn Machine learning and Data science from scratch.
Learning the programming language.
This is where you start. Mainly two languages are used in Data Science, namely Python or R. Without them don’t even think of Data science. My personal suggestion would be Python as R has some limitations in deep learning. I think one month is more than enough to learn python. Don’t rely too much on the theory of courses or books, rather keep practicing what you learn side by side. This will give you real confidence.
The courses I took to learn Python:
The book I read for Python:
Begin to learn Machine learning.
This is where the real game begins. There are many online courses for this, and each one has its own pros and cons. Many people start with Andrew NG’s Machine learning on Coursera but I did not found it very useful for beginners. If you already have some basic understanding of Machine learning then Andrew NG’s course is good for you. (It’s just my personal opinion).
Course I took for Machine Learning:
The book I read:
Trust me, this book is bible of Machine learning. And it’s worth every penny spent on it. It’s available on Amazon India for Rs. 2000 INR I guess.
In parallel to taking the course and reading the book, start exploring kaggle. This is the place where you apply what you learn. This is the place where you can find many great data scientists and their codes. You can compete in any competition you want, it will give a real exposure to Machine learning. I registered the Titanic competition on Kaggle while taking the Machine learning course on Udemy. Below is the link to this awesome site.
Begining to learn Deep Learning and computer vision.
By the time you start deep learning and computer vision, you will already have an idea about what machine learning is all about.
Courses I took for Deep learning and computer vision:
The book I read for deep learning and computer vision:
Some good YouTube channels to follow for ML, DL:
Some useful links:
And in the end, I would say there is no use of any course or any book if you don’t apply your learning. And Kaggle is the place where you can apply. There are other competition websites also like analyticsvidhya; you can google for more such sites.
Point you should consider: Don’t spend too much on buying courses and books. For example, Udemy has many offers and promo codes, applying that you will get any course for a maximum of Rs. 500 INR. Generally, they release an offer after every one week or two.
Hit some claps if you find this blog useful. Thanks for scrolling it till the end. All the best. Happy learning!!! 😊😊
Link to my other blogs:
Why I switched from Mechanical engineering to Machine learning.
The probability distributions for Data science.
