What I Learned from Coursera Mathematics for Machine Learning

Is mathematics necessary to learn Machine Learning? Yes and no.

· Background and Motivations
· Linear Algebra
· Multivariate Calculus
· PCA
· Conclusion

Mathematics for Machine Learning: PCA

Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash

Coursera’s Mathematics for Machine Learning Specialization aims to teach you the basic mathematics you need to learn Machine Learning. The three-course specialization consists of Linear Algebra, Multivariate Calculus, and PCA and each course is supposed to take 4 weeks. While they can be taken in less than 12 weeks, it took me a year to complete the three courses because I finished the first two courses in two months at the beginning of the year (you can guess that it was my new year’s resolution) but I waited 10 months to finish the last course.

If you ask me whether it was worth taking the courses, my answer is a definite yes because I definitely gained some math skills and knowledge by taking the courses. However, I learned something else in the process that I did not quite…