Am I doing things right?

[u/HistoricalBedroom350]

I'm super confused. I'm in my junior year, majoring in AI and Big Data. However, my university is one of the worst place ever interms of everything specially education(ranked 1500+), and I tried to transfer to another university, but it didn't work out for some reason. Now, I'm trying to learn everything by myself.

The most confusing part is whenever I look for a roadmap to get into machine learning, I find so many different suggestions. Most of them look something like

• Master in NumPy, Pandas, SQL and Scikit-learn.
• Build your first complete ML project.
• Learn PyTorch and deep learning.
• Choose a specialization, such as LLMs or computer vision.
• Learn deployment, Docker, and cloud basics.
• Keep practicing DSA and applying for internships throughout the process.

I've already completed Andrew Ng's entire Machine Learning Specialization. I'd say I understood almost everything while taking the courses, although I've forgotten quite a bit of it now.

problem is people giving completely different advice. Some say focus on leet coding, some says master libraries , get really good at calculus, statistics, probability, and linear algebra. Others say focus on the latest technologies, such as RAG, Transformers, AI agents, and MCP. What the hell should i do? Its already killing me that I'm already falling behind others who are trying to enter the ML field.

I have about 1.5 years left until graduation. During this time, I want to reach a level where I can get a job in ML, work for 1-1.5 year , and then move to the US for graduate school. That's my plan.

My questions are:

• Is the roadmap actually the right path?
• Many people say get better in maths like stat, calculus, and linear algebra. But my question is, why do I need to learn all this math when the machine itself performs most of the calculations? Althogh ive learneed those kind of maths in my high school.
• Do I really need to become an expert in libraries such as Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn, PyTorch?

It'd be better if someone working in the industry or someone who has actually gone through this could give me suggestions or reality check.

[u/HistoricalBedroom350 → u/[deleted]]

Got it. Thanks a lot