Introduction

Hi there ! You probably heard of Kaggle if you are in the field of data science or computer science. It is basically a platform where you can participate in data science competitions.

Here is the link of the website : https://www.kaggle.com/

If you want to checkout my profile there 😀 : https://www.kaggle.com/wintercloud

My story

Growing up, I was very curious about everything and especially, with the idea of intelligence. How do we define intelligence ? In the past, I have heard about machines, robots and computers replacing humans. I thought to myself that it was fascinating, not about the fact of people losing their jobs but more about how could the machine replace humans in more complex behaviors such as self driving cars.

Just think about it, you don’t need to go search very far, your grandparents or even young adults (especially those in soft science - sociology, psychology, literature, ...), how much do they know about artificial intelligence ? When AI is everywhere in our life, I think this is quiet worrisome.

Personally, I do have a passion for science, I like understanding why things are the way they are and I am the kind of dude that has random thoughts at 2am and wonders :

“how can fish drink salt water ? do they even drink ?”

“if some liquid leak out of our brain, would our brain bounce like a ball ?”

Anyway, my first every Machine Learning course was with Andrew Ng on Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning , I took it during summer break (after 2nd semester of Bachelor). I didn’t finish the course but it is very intuitive for beginners.

Second course I took was at my university EPFL during my 3rd semester of Bachelor : Introduction to machine learning : https://edu.epfl.ch/coursebook/en/introduction-to-machine-learning-ba3-CS-233-A , it was an introduction to ML but you know I found it more theoretical than practical.

During 1 week holiday break of April (BA4), I told myself that I shouldn’t make up my mind and give up so easily. The next day, youtube recommended me a video on Kaggle (coincidence or not ?), then I went to have a look at it. And started some courses on it.

Kaggle

If you don’t have the basics of machine learning (the theory), I would tell you to go to coursera and take the Andrew Ng course on Coursera : https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning

This is because I found the courses on Kaggle to be very very practice oriented. Sooner or later, you will need to learn the theory, you could do it in whichever way you want, just choose what you are most comfortable with.

My advice for courses on Kaggle#

Here you can find the courses offered by kaggle : https://www.kaggle.com/learn

After creating your account on kaggle, I suggest you go over basics of Python if you aren’t familiar with the language.

Then take the Pandas, this is to fully understand how to manipulate data.

Take the Intro to Machine Learning course, there you will build your first “house prices prediction model”, using Random Forests. And Also participate in your first ML competition !!!

Take the Intermediate Machine Learning course, there you will learn more stuff (data preprocessing + pipelines) and something called XGBoost that will increase your rankings of the “house prices” competition. An exciting way to see how much you have progressed !!!

Then I suggest you take the Data Visualization course, you will learn to vizualise your data. This is a key skill like Pandas that you will use every time. By using different Charts/plots, you will notice patterns and also irregularities in your models.

Lastly, I think you should take Feature Engineering course. I am currently taking it. So I can’t say much about it for now 😅.

😎 Conclusion

Kaggle is super fun and you will be able to improve a lot by taking the courses there and sharpen your skills in competitions !

Good luck in your Data Science journey 😄.