Nithya is writing tutorials in Tamil at http://Kaniyam.com about Bigdata and Machine Learning.
After reading those tutorials, we are receiving many mails asking on how to jump into the world of BigData, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, etc.
Its happy that many are interested in learning new things. We receive emails like,
“Hi, I am a Fresher. Can I learn Bigdata?”
“I am a analyst at Bank. How about jumping to data science?”
“I am a Doctor. Will learning AI help me?”
“I am a Writer. How to get a Machine Learning job?”
etc.
To all, who love to move into a new jobs with Data Science, Big data, Machine Learning, AI, add any new buzz word here,
Yes. You can get new jobs, new roles, new challenges, in these fields.
But, wait. It needs more learning, more practise, more time, Home Work, Community Works.
It is like how to become a Pilot. To drive an Aeroplane. We have to learn walk on floor, run, drive bicycle, bikes, cars then only aeroplanes. It needs to learn Physics, Aerodynamics, Astronomy and more things.
Bigdata, Machine learning, Deep Learning, AI are like driving aeroplanes. Yes. They are fancy. But, they need lot of pre-requests skills.
As we see many aeroplanes, there are many pilots. Anyone can become a Pilot with required learnings and training. Like this any one can learn bigdata, ML etc with learning and training.
The below things are essentials to start with.
1. GNU/Linux
Learning GNU/Linux is a must. With this only you can fly. You should love the command line. Text editors like vim or emacs. should install various packages. Manage the processes, hard disk partitions, and users in command line itself.
Start living with GNU/Linux. Forget Windows. Dont ask why cant we learn bigdata with Windows. You can do few things. But, to learn swimming, you have to jump into water.
start with this book – http://www.linuxtraining.co.uk/download/new_linux_course_modules.pdf
2. Networking Basics
Setting up basic networks, IP address, Routing, Firewall, DNS, VPN etc are essential.
http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/
3. Programming
Forget diving into Bigdata, if you have fears on programming. Learn Python. It is very easy, powerful. It can help you to do all the magics.
https://pymbook.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
4. SQL/NoSQL/JSON
Learn SQL with MySQL, and NoSQL with Redis, MongoDB
5. Visualizations
Learn how to draw charts with the data you have in LibreOffice Calc. Do the same with Python and matplotlib. Then, Explore ELK stack’s Kibana to make charts and dashboards.
6. Cloud service
We can learn all the bigdata tools with our laptops itself. (Min 4 GB RAM is required. 8GB is preferred). But learning them on a cloud service provider will give lot of powers. We can create new virtual machines, process TBs of data easily with Cloud providers. Though it may cost little, it is a worth spend. Learn AWS or Digital Ocean or Google Cloud or Azure.
7. The Big Data tools
Learn Hadoop, Spark, Scikit Learn, Tensor Flow and what not? These are the real things that does the fancy stuff you love.
http://tutorialspoint.com/
https://www.kaggle.com/
8. Maths/Algorithms
We lost maths on our schools/colleges. But Math wont leave us. All the fancy stuff need great understanding of Maths and various algorithms. Learn them as much as possible.
9. Community Contributions
We will learn something seriously, only when we have to teach something for others. Write blog posts on your learnings daily. Join the tech communities nearby. Check Meetup.com for your city. If there is no community, create one and start teaching. Conduct meetups and workshops. They will be a great places for meeting awesome people and tons of learnings. Create screencasts and video tutorials. They will help others to find you easily. Contribute to any opensource software in the possible ways. write some doc. fix some bugs.
Looks huge? yes. it is huge. Your Bike is one or two dials as dashboard. But a Boing Flight is having too many dials in front of a Pilot. To become Pilot, you have to pay huge amount of money. But for learning Big Data, etc, the only investment you have to do is on your laptop, internet connection, your time and your mind.
Internet provides tons and tons of tutorials, blog posts, video tutorials, online courses for teaching all of these. No one on the human history got these amount of learning resources.
Ignorance of anything, nowadays is only our choice.
I have been told these in my talks, personal emails to many of my friends at ILUGC and KanchiLug. Many followed them and now rocking on these fancy fields.
Few years back, I told the same things to my wife Nithya, When she was a software tester. She started learning GNU/Linux. She took notes on what she learnt in Tamil. We published them as Ebooks. Then, she started to learn Python. She made her learnings as Video Tutorials. She learnt ELK, Hadoop, Spark. She gave talks at Indian Linux Users Group, Chennai Monthly meetings. She made video tutorials on them. Then, she got a Job in Machine Learning field. Now she is writing and making video tutorials on Machine Learning.
If she can do all these, you can also do anything.
Writing and teaching is the best way to learn anything.
Start learning something new daily, write about it in your blog, make a video tutorial, teach to your community. Become a pilot. Fly !
