COM SCI M146
Introduction to Machine Learning
Description: (Same as Electrical and Computer Engineering M146.) Lecture, four hours; discussion, two hours; outside study, six hours. Requisites: course 32 or Program in Computing 10C; Civil and Environmental Engineering 110 or Electrical and Computer Engineering 131A or Mathematics 170A or 170E or Statistics 100A; Mathematics 33A. Introduction to breadth of data science. Foundations for modeling data sources, principles of operation of common tools for data analysis, and application of tools and models to data gathering and analysis. Topics include statistical foundations, regression, classification, kernel methods, clustering, expectation maximization, principal component analysis, decision theory, reinforcement learning and deep learning. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
1 of 1
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - Prof. Chang was a good teacher. Slides were very informative, but also a bit overwhelming, especially towards the end of the quarter. Some of the math formulas and derivations for loss functions could get quite complicated and confusing. However, he was a very kind professor, and clearly cared about our learning. He was always willing to stop for questions. Assignments were very easy, but also interesting. There were 6 online 24-hour quizzes, essentially a free 20% grade boost and good review for exams, and 3 python notebook coding assignments. Lectures were mostly conceptual, so these 3 HWs were crucial to understanding the applications of what we learned, as well as a good introduction to sklearn. The midterm was easy, timed and on gradescope, with a mean of 90. The final was much harder, as the concepts at the end of the course were a bit more complex, with harder math as well. The mean was around a 70. However, the rest of the class was pretty easy, and the final was only 30% of the grade, so it's not the end of the world if you stay on top of everything else. Overall, the class was very beneficial to me. I'm very interested in machine learning, and received a great introduction to many concepts, as well as some basic applications. Prof. Chang was very fair, kind, and a pretty good lecturer. I highly recommend this as an elective if you're at all interested in AI/ML.
Fall 2022 - Prof. Chang was a good teacher. Slides were very informative, but also a bit overwhelming, especially towards the end of the quarter. Some of the math formulas and derivations for loss functions could get quite complicated and confusing. However, he was a very kind professor, and clearly cared about our learning. He was always willing to stop for questions. Assignments were very easy, but also interesting. There were 6 online 24-hour quizzes, essentially a free 20% grade boost and good review for exams, and 3 python notebook coding assignments. Lectures were mostly conceptual, so these 3 HWs were crucial to understanding the applications of what we learned, as well as a good introduction to sklearn. The midterm was easy, timed and on gradescope, with a mean of 90. The final was much harder, as the concepts at the end of the course were a bit more complex, with harder math as well. The mean was around a 70. However, the rest of the class was pretty easy, and the final was only 30% of the grade, so it's not the end of the world if you stay on top of everything else. Overall, the class was very beneficial to me. I'm very interested in machine learning, and received a great introduction to many concepts, as well as some basic applications. Prof. Chang was very fair, kind, and a pretty good lecturer. I highly recommend this as an elective if you're at all interested in AI/ML.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Prof. Dolecek is a good person, and she is very knowledgeable when it comes to the course material. I want to make this clear that she is NOT a bad person or mean or anything. That being said, there are some points that you should know if you were to choose her lecture (especially for remote learning): 1. She didn't use zoom. All lectures are pre-recorded and posted on CCLE for my quarter. 2. She has terrible, terrible handwriting. Sometimes you cannot tell subtractions apart from multiplications (she writes ยท and - really casually), also from time to time her writing becomes unreadable and you have to rely fully on listening. 3. For some reason, in the middle of the quarter she switched from ball-point to highlighter to write on her slides, just when you think her handwriting cannot get any worse... So pretty much her handwriting has made this course harder than it should be, and the highlighter is plain suffer for remote learning. But again, Prof. Dolecek is a good person, she would answer questions and can explain stuff for you when you are stuck.
Spring 2020 - Prof. Dolecek is a good person, and she is very knowledgeable when it comes to the course material. I want to make this clear that she is NOT a bad person or mean or anything. That being said, there are some points that you should know if you were to choose her lecture (especially for remote learning): 1. She didn't use zoom. All lectures are pre-recorded and posted on CCLE for my quarter. 2. She has terrible, terrible handwriting. Sometimes you cannot tell subtractions apart from multiplications (she writes ยท and - really casually), also from time to time her writing becomes unreadable and you have to rely fully on listening. 3. For some reason, in the middle of the quarter she switched from ball-point to highlighter to write on her slides, just when you think her handwriting cannot get any worse... So pretty much her handwriting has made this course harder than it should be, and the highlighter is plain suffer for remote learning. But again, Prof. Dolecek is a good person, she would answer questions and can explain stuff for you when you are stuck.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - I usually don't come on this website often, but I am shocked by the reviews of other students. I will say this. Professor Grover is not the most engaging or humorous teacher, but he cares extensively to how well you can learn, much more so than other professors I have had. I think his classes are at a great pace, he teaches extremely clearly, and all assessments are very reasonable. His office hours were great fun, we talked about many higher-level concepts not necessarily in the course, and on a personal level he's a great guy. I truly enjoyed this course. -Leeland (if my name gives this review more credibility)
Spring 2023 - I usually don't come on this website often, but I am shocked by the reviews of other students. I will say this. Professor Grover is not the most engaging or humorous teacher, but he cares extensively to how well you can learn, much more so than other professors I have had. I think his classes are at a great pace, he teaches extremely clearly, and all assessments are very reasonable. His office hours were great fun, we talked about many higher-level concepts not necessarily in the course, and on a personal level he's a great guy. I truly enjoyed this course. -Leeland (if my name gives this review more credibility)
AD
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Professor Sankararaman is an amazing lecturer, and he explains concepts in a clear and concise manner. For my quarter, there were eight quizzes in total (pretty much one per week), which was somewhat inconvenient. However, I learned a lot from this class, and it was overall a highly enjoyable experience. I would definitely recommend taking this class with this professor.
Winter 2021 - Professor Sankararaman is an amazing lecturer, and he explains concepts in a clear and concise manner. For my quarter, there were eight quizzes in total (pretty much one per week), which was somewhat inconvenient. However, I learned a lot from this class, and it was overall a highly enjoyable experience. I would definitely recommend taking this class with this professor.
1 of 1
