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What is studying artificial intelligence like?

I have been considering it as I major in computer science, but I'm wondering what it's like. #college #technology #artificial-intelligence

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Ken’s Answer

This field is indeed an interesting one with many possibilities. The best way that you can determine how you might become involved is to get to know yourself better to determine how you might be aligned with people successfully working in that area based upon your personality traits and then doing interpersonal networking with people working in that are to determine further that is is an area in which you could reach a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.


Getting to know yourself and how your personality traits relate to people involved in various career opportunities is very important in your decision making process. During my many years in Human Resources and College Recruiting, I ran across too many students who had skipped this very important step and ended up in a job situation which for which they were not well suited. Selecting a career area is like buying a pair of shoes. First you have to be properly fitted for the correct size, and then you need to try on and walk in the various shoe options to determine which is fits the best and is most comfortable for you to wear. Following are some important steps which I developed during my career which have been helpful to many .

Ken recommends the following next steps:

The first step is to take an interest and aptitude test and have it interpreted by your school counselor to see if you share the personality traits necessary to enter the field. You might want to do this again upon entry into college, as the interpretation might differ slightly due to the course offering of the school. However, do not wait until entering college, as the information from the test will help to determine the courses that you take in high school. Too many students, due to poor planning, end up paying for courses in college which they could have taken for free in high school.
Next, when you have the results of the testing, talk to the person at your high school and college who tracks and works with graduates to arrange to talk to, visit, and possibly shadow people doing what you think that you might want to do, so that you can get know what they are doing and how they got there. Here are some tips: ## http://www.wikihow.com/Network ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/nonawkward-ways-to-start-and-end-networking-conversations ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/4-questions-to-ask-your-network-besides-can-you-get-me-a-job?ref=carousel-slide-1 ##
Locate and attend meetings of professional associations to which people who are doing what you think that you want to do belong, so that you can get their advice. These associations may offer or know of intern, coop, shadowing, and scholarship opportunities. These associations are the means whereby the professionals keep abreast of their career area following college and advance in their career. You can locate them by asking your school academic advisor, favorite teachers, and the reference librarian at your local library. Here are some tips: ## https://www.careeronestop.org/BusinessCenter/Toolkit/find-professional-associations.aspx?&frd=true ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/9-tips-for-navigating-your-first-networking-event ##
It is very important to express your appreciation to those who help you along the way to be able to continue to receive helpful information and to create important networking contacts along the way. Here are some good tips: ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-informational-interview-thank-you-note-smart-people-know-to-send?ref=recently-published-2 ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/3-tips-for-writing-a-thank-you-note-thatll-make-you-look-like-the-best-candidate-alive?bsft_eid=7e230cba-a92f-4ec7-8ca3-2f50c8fc9c3c&bsft_pid=d08b95c2-bc8f-4eae-8618-d0826841a284&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily_20171020&utm_source=blueshift&utm_content=daily_20171020&bsft_clkid=edfe52ae-9e40-4d90-8e6a-e0bb76116570&bsft_uid=54658fa1-0090-41fd-b88c-20a86c513a6c&bsft_mid=214115cb-cca2-4aec-aa86-92a31d371185&bsft_pp=2 ##
Many people working in this are got their start at their local community college as the cost is more reasonable, the class sizes are smaller, and they have opportunities for internship and coop programs which allow you to earn and learn and get to see the inside view of the career as you go along in your education/career journey. You would find it interesting to visit the director of alumni relations at your local community college to arrange to meet and talk to graduates working in your career area of interest to get to know how they got there, what they do in their job, what advice and suggestions they have for you and how you would feel about working in that career area as a source of a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.
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Rak’s Answer

I did a Masters in Artificial Intelligence and specialized in both 3-d visualization and autonomous technology. I built a system that recognized individuals based on their walking pattern (gait analysis).

It was a ton of fun and most days it felt like I was just playing with toys and watching my little robots learn and grow. Like anything in life, if you have a passion for it and would like to develop skills in the field, you'll be able to get through it with your dedication.

You're also going to help solve real-world problems (my Masters was to help build a medical system to help identify gait disorders). It is a very rewarding major.

Best of luck to you.
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Dan’s Answer

Hi Aiesha,

I think it's a great field to consider, it includes different areas of study and it's becoming more and more important. I studied artificial intelligence in college and graduate school and have worked in the field for much of my career. When you are studying you will probably study computer science and at the start. I'm was not great at math and I learned the math slowly but that was okay. If you like math and are good at it, that's great but if math doesn't come easily to you and you are willing to study, that will work, too.

You will also study areas of AI like machine vision, machine learning, natural language processing, and planning. One of the interesting things about AI is you get to learn things like how vision works or how the languages we speak are organized. When I worked on natural language processing systems, I worked with a linguist and learned a lot about language.

Cousera has free courses online including one called "AI for Everyone" at https://www.coursera.org/learn/ai-for-everyone. Cousera is a great place to learn a lot of different things. I also like Khan Academy a lot for math courses. They have tutorial videos on math from early school to college level math. https://www.khanacademy.org/math
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Ankitaben’s Answer

Hi Aiesha,
I recently (Nov 2020) finished my study (as correspondence course) in "Artificial Intelligence and machine learning". Having hold on programming languages and computer science fundamentals, first I thought it will be in same direction.

Turned out it is totally different world. If you really want to touch the core of these area, Mathematics is the key. Statistic, Probability theories, calculus are the major area for ML algorithms. Very good focus will be required on data presentation also for static analysis. prerequisite for such course will be good hold on either python or R programming language (at least basics).

During my course, i referred lot of time these resources: 1) https://www.coursera.org/ 2) https://medium.com/ 3) https://www.khanacademy.org/math/linear-algebra/ 4) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIXc5mJsHVYTZR1maL5l9w

Very important thing is, in which area want to go deeper. According to same you should select the path.
Following are the area I am aware of.
1) Supervised learning
2) Unsupervised learning
3) Feature engineering in depth
4) Natural language processing
5) Deep learning

No matter how hard it looks like, 100% worth pursuing area. Future is going to adapt this version of science.
Hope this helps. All the best.

Ankitaben recommends the following next steps:

Enroll and attend free course on https://www.coursera.org for get feel about subjects
Enroll and get familiar with https://www.khanacademy.org/math
Get idea about all 5 paths (mentioned in main section)
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Saquib’s Answer

To answer this question, you would have to open your mind up to the possibilities of the human brain. Artificial Intelligence is a very broad field wherein it cannot be just defined by robots and machines. AI is an area of study in Computer Science that focuses on creating computer systems that perform tasks that require human intelligence. This can include visual perception, decision-making, translation, and even speech recognition.
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