I'm a Stanford Student!!…kind of

November 9, 2020

This week, I can officially call myself a Stanford University student who is studying machine learning, well sort of. I was browsing the internet looking for opportunities for beginner artificial intelligence workers and just computer science opportunities in general. This is when I stumbled upon a Coursera course created by Stanford University and taught by Professor Andrew Ng. I immediately asked my dad if I could enroll for the course and he agreed. So, now I am officially a student of Stanford University!

The course overviews the basics of machine learning, it is an 11 week course and completely self paced. Professor Ng has created multiple videos for the students to watch and partake in discussion posts, read articles, and also take quizzes over the topics which will be taught in the course. A cool thing was that the course was actually offered for free, however there was a fee if students wanted to get the certification from the university for completing the course, and this is the option that I signed up for.

I know that this course is going to be a challenge, but I am ready for it. The course is offered to professionals and is meant to go through essential knowledge that a machine learning engineer needs to know in order to be successful on the job, therefore I know that I will have to reach out to Professor Ng for assistance as well as my dad. But I am prepared to face these challenges for the simple reason that I am excited to learn about more about my topic of study.

I don’t think this opportunity would have come to me unless it was for ISM. This class has helped me develop my interest in this career even further and I am grateful for acceptance into it. I believe that the mentor that I select will give me a lot of quality assistance that will allow me to succeed in the course and in my future career.