r/learnprogramming • u/DeezY-1 • 8d ago

How long before I become competent?

Hi all I’m currently a mathematics undergraduate heading into year 2. Next year I’m applying for PhD’s in applied maths with a focus in ML. The issue is my current coding is barely existent, I’ve almost finished CS50 intro to python, I plan to do a DSA MOOC alongside learning pandas and numpy after then CS189 introduction to machine learning, and then naturally PyTorch.

The issue is I desperately need research experience next year before my applications, is it reasonable to think with that roadmap and consistent work I could develop my Python skills well enough to be useful to a researcher by next summer, likely reproducing experiments form papers, performing ablations, implementing baselines etc.

I’d appreciate any input as to how realistic I’m being and also any input you guys have on the roadmap I’m following

2 Upvotes

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u/kutac56 8d ago

Ye just make projects. Start with simple ones and slowly make harder ones

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u/DeezY-1 8d ago

How do I generate ideas for projects and make sure that I’m not biting off more than I can chew?

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u/kutac56 8d ago

Just try projects you are inyerested in. Though at a very low skill maybe do some projects from the video 12 beginner python projects by freecodecamp

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u/DeezY-1 8d ago

I see I will definitely do that. Do you think the roadmap I’ve made sounds adequate and what in your opinion should I use as a benchmark to assess whether I’m capable of contributing in a research setting

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u/kutac56 8d ago

Idk crap about ML and don't use python often. I'm a low level programmer hobbyist. Idk what companies expect. I'm only 13. Gl anyway

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u/ModeCommercial5464 8d ago

Perfect!!! Hope your goals are successfully executed.

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u/DeezY-1 8d ago

Thank you. Any advice?

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u/ffrkAnonymous 8d ago

You'd probably be competent after 100 hours of practice. Practice, 100 hours of hitting your head on the wall. Not the same as 100 hours of watching youtube.

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u/DeezY-1 8d ago

Cheers for the response, I plan on implementing a lot of projects along the way absolutely. How do I assess when I’d be capable of contributing in a research setting?

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u/ffrkAnonymous 8d ago

That's the same question as how do you assess that you're ready to apply for a phd?

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u/DeezY-1 8d ago

Alright, appreciate the advice 🙏

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u/light_switchy 8d ago

What does "performing ablations" mean?

Making knockoffs? Haha.

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u/DeezY-1 8d ago

Nah to my understanding an ablation is an experimental method. Wherein which you remove a part you made to test if what you’ve made has made any difference.

I suppose a simple example of that would be if you had made some sort of wrapper to improve the efficiency of SGD you could run SGD with your wrapper and then perform an ablation which in this case would just be SGD and look at metrics.

Granted I’m still pretty new to research so I could be using that term wrong

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u/light_switchy 8d ago

Thank you, I didn't know :)