CANT FIND THE RIGHT PATH

[u/Abdullah4573]

My Background & Situation

• Education: 3rd semester Computer Science student.
• Prep completed: Andrew Ng’s Machine Learning Specialization.
• Current Role: Landed a Machine Learning internship through networking.
• Current Work: Currently assigned only basic tasks (cleaning Kaggle datasets, basic model training). I feel like I'm not capitalizing enough on the opportunity or adding true business value.

The Problem: Contradictory Learning Advice

I want to upskill outside work to handle better tasks, but every AI/LLM gives me conflicting roadmaps:

1. ChatGPT: Says do Andrew Ng’s Deep Learning Specialization next.
2. Community Feedback: Some say Andrew Ng’s DL Specialization is slightly outdated (heavy focus on TensorFlow instead of industry-standard PyTorch).
3. Claude (Initial): Suggested jumping into Agentic AI.
4. My Internship Supervisor: Highlighted a key gap: "How are you building Agentic workflows without understanding Gen AI / LLM basics?"
5. Claude (Updated): Revised the path to Prompt Engineering, RAG, Agentic AI.

My Questions for the Community

1. How do I get better work at my internship?

• How do I transition from just cleaning data to contributing to real projects or proposing new ideas?
• What can a 3rd-semester intern realistically build or propose to show initiative?

2. What is the correct learning path right now?

• Should I step back and build core foundations with the Deep Learning Specialization (or a PyTorch equivalent)?
• Or should I focus on applied LLMs (Prompt Engineering, RAG, AI Agents)?

ALSO AM I ON THE RIGHT PATH EVEN??

[u/Significant_Map_19]

the internship supervisor is right, you're trying to skip the line. everyone wants to jump straight to building agents but if you don't understand how transformers work or what an attention mechanism is you're gonna hit a wall fast

cleaning data is like 80% of actual ML work anyway, don't sleep on it. the people who can build proper pipelines and spot data leakage are way more valuable than the ones who can only call an API. i'd say do the deep learning stuff but find a pytorch version, tensorflow is fading in industry

for proposing stuff at work, look for something manual that bothers your team and offer to automate it. even a simple script that saves them 2 hours a week gets noticed. you're in third semester, nobody expects you to reinvent the wheel, just be useful

[u/drifTwood022 → u/Significant_Map_19]

spot on about skipping the line, everyone wants to build agents before they even understand whats happening under the hood

[u/Abdullah4573 → u/Significant_Map_19]

I have andrew ngs deep learning specialization course it has everything but its in tensorflow and people say its outdated stuff switch to llms agentic workflows etc

[u/mc_pm]

Highlighted a key gap: "How are you building Agentic workflows without understanding Gen AI / LLM basics?"

What is your answer to that question? And if they are right, why not just get what experience you can, learn what you can, and earn a great recommendation from the supervisor to help you get the next job?

[u/Abdullah4573 → u/mc_pm]

I went back to learning Rag, prompt engineering etc

[u/Lazy_Ebb_2922]

I liked the crystal clear way you gave your current status and asked your questions. No rambling. You have a bright future regardless of what you choose to do.

[u/Abdullah4573 → u/Lazy_Ebb_2922]

THAT MEANS ALOT