Hands-on vs text-book-lecture learning

Question

I'm trying to brush up on my skills (DS with 7 YoE), and honestly, I find it very overwhelming. There's just too much to learn and too many resources. As a PhD, I really feel the urge to dig deep and learn everything about the algorithms and the math behind them. Same applies to new tools. But then, I’m not sure if knowing-it-all is going to be useful to me on interviews. Also, I don’t know if I should just pick a couple of projects and learn hands-on or take advanced courses and learn the traditional way. I have used both methods before, but it’s been a while for me and now that I’m trying to catch up I feel like I can’t get my head around all this

! I guess I’m getting old lol.

How do you all navigate your learning journey? I’m in a career rut (mid-career crisis maybe?!) and really need to learn new stuff to stay relevant and SANE! I feel like the corporate culture is killing my cognitive abilities and that scares me.

refer61614 · Accepted Answer

Doing vs learning is a balance, but especially if you’re predisposed to going deep into theory, I would say to find a project and just start.

I would be much more interested in hearing about someone’s work that made a basic predictive engine for movies they like from IMDb data compared to ML theory. The ups and downs and real world challenges brings it to life and makes me feel like they actually understand it in practice.

Just find something cool and start. Starting is the hardest part.

davidramirez · Answer

Personally, I find doing both ways is the best and to do them often. I pretty much always have a technical book on hand, either some book from Oreily or a college textbook. I like to find patterns with the models I use and then spend my time on understanding the basic building blocks of those models. Pretty much most complicated sounding model can be boiled down to easier to understand steps that extend from some other simpler predecessor. But, to your point, it’s impossible to keep up these days, between all the knowledge in traditional math and statistics to all the new advancements in ML/AI, no way to keep up and know everything. IMO it’s best to just become a  specialist and really hone in on what skills are needed to be the best there.

Hands-on vs text-book-lecture learning

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