“Am I on the right path? Am I really learning?”
Things might only start making sense later.
“Am I on the right path? Am I really learning?” This was a question that I typically would ask myself in the middle of researching content or in the middle of building a project.
Remember this word. Middle.
2 months ago, when I started learning machine learning. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I was copy and pasting code, and watching playlist over playlist of machine learning tutorials, but I never completed a single one. Only up to the middle of one at most.
This is where I asked myself the question: “Am I on the right path? Am I really learning?” And lo and behold, 2 days later, I would stop watching the playlist and move on to a different one — moving on to a different playlist or even an online course with the hope that I’ll grasp the material better.
The problem wasn’t that I was asking myself, “Am I on the right path?” The problem was that I’d ask myself this question too early.
What does it mean to ask this question “too early?”
When I first started learning machine learning, I felt like shit. Not that the topic was uninteresting, but because it was complicated. I felt discomfort from not knowing something and I wanted to stop. And so upon encountering this feeling, I would discontinue my learning in this “path,” and I would begin a new one.
While learning machine learning, these discontinuations went about for 2 weeks, but beyond this, in the past, I would continue this same action of opting-in and opting-out of commitments when I tried learning quantum computing. It was only up until a month ago that the thought became conscious to me: I never actually finished any of the mid-to-long term commitments that I’d swear to complete. And by the mid-to-long term, I mean finishing a sequence of periodically scheduled activities. ie. reading an article a day for a month.
I’d watch Tensorflow tutorials in one sitting while being frustrated why the ideas never clicked in my head. I’d push myself to do Udacity, EdX, Coursera and Udemy courses but ending up completing none of them. Again, at most, I would only complete up until the middle.
Why on Earth wasn’t I learning?
About a month and a half ago, I came across the answer through a realization while having an online meeting with an experienced machine learning engineer. Let’s call this guy “Gary.” Gary has been working in the machine learning industry for 10 years. 10 years ago, when the buzzwords of machine learning drew the attention of big-name companies, many people felt the need to start learning this hot new thing to get a pay raise, a promotion or even a new job — solely dedicated to machine learning.
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Gary had a very niche profession, and he would only need to use machine learning for very specific tasks. And as a result of his specific criteria, there were few books and online resources that he would gain benefit from, so this didn’t make his situation any better; especially during a time where career-oriented machine learning was particularly new.
Given my mindset and approach to learning 2 months ago, if I was Gary, I would have kept on searching for resources, and maybe dabbling into books that I would partially read but never complete. Had Gary kept on searching for “the perfect resource” or the crème de la crème of machine learning academia, he wouldn’t be as proficient in machine learning as he is today. Despite the limited number of resources, Gary decided to take on the few that he had access to, and push through any challenging concept and learn its relevancy. Most importantly, he’d complete the goals that he set for himself.
So what exactly was my realization?
Stick to a commitment and finish it.
Let me explain, but first, I’ll convey it through a little example.
Person 1: “Wait so it’s actually all ‘template_to_fill_in’?”
Person 2: “Always has been.”
You’ve likely experienced this before and you’ve probably been the astronaut with the gun pointed to your head a couple of times. Adrenaline rush and all aside, you feel that all your past experiences have been overwritten with a new file name labelled to them — a new definition to your experiences.
To put this into perspective, imagine your best friend of 10 years betraying you in any form, and you realize it. You’d begin to question all of the previous intentions that they had while engaging in a conversation with you. In essence, all of your past memories become overwritten with a new perception — that is likely a negative one.
But on a more positive note because we’re seeking self-improvement, imagine going to the gym because you want chiselled abs or a snatched waist. Sometimes, you’d wearily commute to the gym, and maybe even demotivated at times. 10 months later after pushing through those dreaded moments, you’d look back in the mirror with your reflection smiling back at you, saying, “Look at you, you sexy beast. Man, I’m glad I went through that shit. It really made the whole experience all the more satisfying.” After all, who would love a movie without any friction?
Once I started setting goals to start learning scikit-learn for machine learning, by consistently investing 3 hours a day, into courses and projects that I swore I would complete, I ended up completing them all. Of course, this only happened because I had others to hold myself accountable for my actions, such as my friends. Although I wasn’t getting results for the longest time (and sometimes I just wanted to quit and whine as I used to), I still knew I was bound to get a result someday if I stuck on the same path, although I couldn’t predict when. I just had to continue on with my learning trajectory. I stayed patient to find that “always has been” moment.
Then one day, 2 weeks later while diving into a rabbit hole of research, I realized that the cumulation of what I had learned actually started to fit together because of one new concept that I was introduced to. The feeling was like solving a 1000 piece puzzle set but finally putting in the 10 pieces that made up the face of a person. Those 10 pieces can change the narrative of anything. If the background of the puzzle was a public execution, then a difference of the missing face being a king or a peasant can change the entire meaning of the situation.
“The most important thing for a bright and curious kid is to learn to stick to one thing and take it to the end because science is very unforgiving that way you can just take in snippets. it has to be a systematic buildup all the way to the top” — Andrea Morello, Professor at the University of New South Wales and Quantum Computing engineer.
You’re the main character of your own movie.
Plots of a movie always need friction in order to tell a story. While walking out of the theatre, you might have a completely different opinion of a character than from the start of the film. Similarly, when you finish a goal, the feeling you get from remembering your past experiences becomes overwritten with a new feeling. That pain may turn into happiness. Your memories to struggle with endurance may transform into excitement and anticipation to experience it again.
The things start to make sense because of that ending realization. And it only happens when you stick to a commitment and finish it. The realization will render all of your previous memories of achieving your goal with a brand new definition, that is, a new perspective.
Once you finish that goal, instead of asking yourself, “Am I on the right path? Am I learning?” Ask yourself this: “What did I learn from this?”
Hopefully, you read this whole article, and if you did, I’ll end on one final thought that you may have even come up with yourself during this article:
You’re not on the wrong path. You’re just too early in the path.
Hi! 👋 I’m Evan, a 16-year old that’s interested in machine learning and positively impacting communities of scale!
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