Want to work in machine learning? There are plenty of online courses that will give you a solid grounding in the world of data.
Machine learning is one of the top emerging technologies of the year. Jobs in data analytics, data science and data mining are plentiful but, as with most of the technology sector, there is a talent gap.
Third-level education has been catching up in recent years with a number of relevant courses added in various universities and institutes of technology. As the CAO change of mind facility is open until 1 July, you can still put one of these top machine learning degrees as your first preference.
However, there are other options to help you get on the career ladder. If a three or four-year degree doesn’t take your fancy, an online course can often give you a solid grounding for a fruitful career.
Online courses give people more flexibility and less commitment when it comes to learning the basics of any skill.
For many online courses and e-learning facilities, you can dip in and out in your own time, study and practise in your own time and move at your own pace. Many are free and the ones that aren’t often offer a free trial.
There is also a wide variety of course levels you can do, prices you can pay, time you can spend learning and there’s scope to upskill.
Below we’ve looked at just some of the e-learning platforms where you can learn about machine learning that will help kick-start your career.
Udacity
Udacity is a US-based e-learning platform offering a number of online courses in machine learning in collaboration with various industry experts and educational institutes.
Udacity offers a nanodegree for those interested in becoming a machine learning engineer with certification at the end of the programme. Udacity also offers a ‘nanodegree plus’ programme, which offers a job or money-back guarantee.
For those who are looking for something a little less costly, Udacity also offers a number of free machine learning courses ranging from 10 weeks to four months.
Coursera
With links to some of the best universities in the US, Coursera offers high-quality education in various topics online.
Its machine learning course is 11 weeks for a fee and is offered by Stanford University.
You will receive a certificate at the end and throughout the course you will be able to connect with thousands of other learners on the course.
Lynda
Lynda from LinkedIn is a leading online learning platform that helps anyone learn a wide range of skills, including machine learning. The site offers a 30-day free trial and after that, prices are from €14.95.
Lynda offers short online courses of approximately an hour into various aspects of machine learning from beginner to advanced.
One in particular to consider is Mathematica 11 machine learning. In this, you can learn how to analyse data using machine learning capabilities built into Mathematica 11.
Alison
To help grasp the basics of technology and data mining, Alison is a Galway-based e-learning platform offering a number of free online courses on software development, data science and machine learning.
For those interested, Alison has an introduction to machine learning course. This course is an ideal starter for anyone who is interested in computer science.
Udemy
Udemy offers thousands of online courses with which to upskill, including a number of machine learning courses.
One in particular is Machine Learning A-Z: Hands-on Python and R in Data Science. This course offers more than 40 hours of on-demand videos and a number of other articles and resources.
For this course, you only need some second-level maths in exchange for an insight into data mining, R programming and Python.
