Machine Learning Masters

I began a Masters degree at Glyndwr university in Wrexham in Data Science & Big Data Analytics. I’m doing it part-time over two years. Why Data Science? It’s an interesting topic; I am very interested in statistics and this is a technological application of that. And while ML is hyped both in its ability to deliver results and its role in industry it is a useful discipline. The course so far is fairly disappointing. I’ve done two modules so far, Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms, and ‘Big data Challenges and Opportunities’. The former is, frankly, just an introductory course in Python and very basic data structures like lists and tree; it would have been more honestly called “introductory”, the latter module is more of a sociology and “ethics of data” course. Both are easy, and not very interesting but great time absorbers. Writing academics papers is a major pain in the arse as the amount of effort to read a bazillion papers then absorb precis and regurgitate them is large and unrewarding. I do hope however that the remainder of the course will perk up and become more technical and engaging.

Edit: the database section of the course was very enjoyable. IT stretched my knowledge of SQL and introduced me to Oracle systems as well as visual analytics which is rather fun.