“It is nearly unanimous in most circles which machine learning course is best for newcomers: Andrew Ng’s Coursera offering,” says KD Nuggets. This is the class released in 2011 that sparked the founding of Coursera, a juggernaut in online education. The course is acclaimed online and has a 4.7 star review over 422 ratings. Wait. It only has 422 ratings? Another highly respected course, in fact, top three in freecodecamp.com review of machine learning courses, Udemy’s Machine Learning A-Z: Hands on Python & R in Data Science, has a 4.5 star rating and over 8119 reviews. That’s 18 times more reviews! Why? Udemy’s course offers more applicable training in the software required in most careers that involve machine learning, Python and R.
To determine what works best for you visit a Quora post titled, “How Do I Learn Machine Learning?” It has served as a robust resource to education seekers as evidenced by its 468,000 views. It has 93 FAQ answers and makes a number of insightful suggestions on books that will advance your understanding and application of machine learning. Then as you move on to deciding what online course or degree you should pursue, consider the criteria put forth by freecodecamp.com in analyzing online course options:
- Is there an explanation of machine learning workflow? Does it properly line out the steps to execute the project successfully?
- How many machine learning techniques and algorithms are considered in detail?
- Which machine learning and data science tools are taught? Preferably Python, R or Scala.