COMP3670: Introduction to Machine Learning

This course was introduced in 2019, as a “whirlwind tour” to get people up-to-speed with the mathematics they need to tackle the notoriouly brutal and theory-heavy SML, while also giving them a first taste of real machine learning.

While it may be an “on-ramp” compared to SML, this course can still be mathematically challenging, especially if your only exposure to university-level mathematics has been MATH1005. If you’re planning your degree out from the beginning, and want to study machine learning, consider taking at least MATH1013 + MATH1014 instead of the CS default MATH1005, as you’ll be setting yourself up for a much easier time come third year.

If you’re already well into your degree, don’t panic - this course is still doable. Try and come into the course with some experience writing Python already, so you can blast through the practical exercises and take the time to really understand the theoretical concepts.

Also, this course sometimes doesn’t do a great job of motivating why all this maths is necessary. Just trust that it’ll all be useful eventually, and try to stay motivated.

Of course, you may have no idea whether machine learning is the CS subfield for you. After two years of study, you’ve probably had a taste of theory, computer systems, software engineering / programming at scale, and security, but other than a tiny taste in COMP2420, you probably haven’t been exposed to what’s certainly one of the “hottest” areas in CS among academics and industry alike. In that case, Intro to ML might just give you enough exposure to work out whether you want to go down that path. One caveat: if you're mildly interested, but the application examples seem unexciting, stick with it - later applied ML courses will raise that bar.

Got through Intro to ML and want more? The next step in ML theory is SML (and then Advanced ML if you’re really keen); if you feel like it’s time for some applications, try Data Mining, Data Wrangling, or the more interesting Document Analysis or Bio-Inspired.