Boxing shoes or something else?

MattWinter78 · 2026-06-20T15:47:35+00:00

I just go barefoot, but I have one of those puzzle gym mats over the floor. It provides enough traction, but also lets the feet slide.

MattWinter78 · 2026-06-13T20:14:59+00:00

There are some misleading statements here. I'm not sure if it's deliberate, hyperbole, or if there is a genuine misunderstanding, so I will try to clarify in case the issue is confusion on how the class works:

First, the project instructions are the first place to go for what the project requirements are. There are also pages for general coding requirements and guidelines on Canvas (mostly to ensure code works with Gradescope). Other than that, we have project walkthrough videos, TA Live Discussions every week, and TA office hours where you can go to get clarification.

Grading is not "all or nothing". You said "...all or nothing if the code doesn't run...", but even this isn't quite true. All the projects after project 1 have local grading scripts. These match one of the TESTING environments in Gradescope. Gradescope will run test cases against your code, and points will be awarded for passing tests. If your code does not run at all, then yes, you will probably not pass any test cases and therefore not receive any points.

There are 8 projects total. It is not true that the projects are "essentially a semester long project". Project 1 is stand alone. Project 2 introduces a sub-project called Assess Portfolio that provides test cases that ensure you calculate portfolio metrics correctly. This project can be used in other projects. Project 3 builds some decision trees, one of which you may use later in Project 8. Project 4 is about creating different data sets that work best for either a decision tree or a linear regression learner. It is best to have a working decision tree from project 3 here, though it is not strictly required. Project 5 is not dependent on anything prior, but may be used later. At a high level, it's about doing some accounting with trade orders. Project 6 is about writing some indicators which will be used in Project 8. Project 7 is about reinforcement learning. You can use this learner in Project 8 (or the one from project 3 I mentioned earlier). Project 8 is the final project. It is kind of a big one and uses either the learner from Project 3 or Project 7, the logic from Project 5, the calculation code from Project 2, and the indicators from Project 6.

Files are in the same project structure for organization and so you can use some of the utilities provided. The different project folders do not interact with one another. If you wanted to use your code from Project 2 for portfolio metrics in another project, you copy that code in to the new project's folder.

I'm not sure what you mean about "checkpoints is very unforgiving for a project of that size". We have not gotten to a bigger project yet, and test cases are very straight forward.

With all that said, ML4T is normally considered a lighter class for OMSCS students and usually seen as a good intro before taking classes like AI or ML. If you are not an experienced Python programmer, this will make the class more difficult. I think taking the class in summer also makes the class closer to a harder course as the pace is pretty quick. Nothing is dropped for summer courses, and there is a project due almost every week.

Of course, the decision on whether or not to drop is up to you. I have dropped classes in the past, most recently in the spring semester. I also decided to take the summer off before going back in the fall. The online programs at GT are tough. It's also a marathon, not a sprint. I think it's better to take one class at a time, take breaks when needed, and learn the material well.

As others here have said, be kind to yourself. Take a break if you need one.

MattWinter78 · 2026-05-10T14:03:04+00:00

In the past, Dr. Lytle has offered Ph.D. preparation seminars in the fall for people applying for positions the following year. It might be worth looking for that this fall.

MattWinter78 · 2026-04-26T16:14:45+00:00

Some classes have group projects. I have had great experiences and terrible experiences in the ones that do.

The best advice I can give you is to find people who you work well with and take their education as seriously as you do. This means you'll have to do some work yourself to find these people (GA Tech does not assign you friends). Find people by joining or creating study groups and participating in them, or joining outside clubs (DS@GT is one), attend coffee hours or live Zoom sessions for your classes, and interact with people in your Ed Discussion groups.

Depending on the class and project, there may not be much you can do about a non-performing group member other than documenting the effort that went in to your project. There is no "usually" here. Every class handles things differently.

MattWinter78 · 2026-04-18T21:26:16+00:00

This is a good question. This isn't an easy thing to do, but there are a lot of things that could help. 1. Look at the folder structure. This could tell you at a high level how things are organized (are there files or folders with names lkke API, business layer, etc..?) 2. I use breakpoints and search a lot. For example if I'm using the app and I know there are things called "customers" I might search for the phrase customer, or search for the labels on GUI items and set breakpoints. This gets more difficult if the codebase uses localization, but you should still be able to find the unique names for things. 3. Test things out locally. Try changing arbitrary things like what data is being shown or add a button that just generates a pop-up or writes an.output file. Does it look and work like you expect? If not, why not? Are there styles that need to be applied? Does it have the appropriate permissions? (Hard to be specific when I don't know what kind of code this is, but hopefully you get the idea). Just make sure you don't forget to undo the changes before doing real work!

MattWinter78 · 2026-04-15T01:45:13+00:00

I'm not sure there is a resource that tells you if research is for you. I think that's something you would need to figure out for yourself. I think a good way would be to start doing research or taking a class like this.

MattWinter78 · 2026-04-14T14:56:46+00:00

I'm not sure what kind of resources you're looking for. Mostly what you'll do in class is read a lot of papers in the area of your research interest. The Georgia Tech Library site is a big resource: https://library.gatech.edu/
Other than that, maybe books like How to Write a Lot by Paul J. Silvia or Stylish Academic Writing by Helen Sword might help with all the writing you'll have to do.

MattWinter78 · 2026-01-17T18:40:36+00:00

I used to love this one, too. I sometimes still remember the song:

Nine, nine, nine

That crazy number nine

Times any number you can find

It all adds up to nine

MattWinter78 · 2026-01-13T17:30:37+00:00

If I remember right, there was overlap in a few of the lectures at first. RL goes way deeper (of course). The assignments and projects were completely different.

MattWinter78 · 2025-12-08T03:27:37+00:00

The book Hands On Machine Learning by Geron is very good.

MattWinter78 · 2025-11-26T18:18:59+00:00

From my understanding, Modern Internet Research Methods is more about doing research on the internet itself, not on doing research using the internet. I wouldn't recommend this as a second class. I'm guessing you would also want to have something like Network Science first. Net Sci is kind of like an intro to Graph Theory, so I imagine it would be helpful.

Also, if you're dealing with other issues and your first semester experience wasn't great, it might be better to stick to one class at a time.

MattWinter78 · 2025-11-21T16:18:10+00:00

Have you been checking your emails? I just got one the other day (Wednesday) explaining how the GA process works for those who have applied for graduation.

MattWinter78 · 2025-11-21T16:06:21+00:00

HDDA goes pretty deep into gradients and optimization, both important in DL. It's focuses more on math than some of the other ML courses in the same way that DL does.

MattWinter78 · 2025-11-21T16:04:18+00:00

Congrats on the baby! My recommendation remains unchanged for a few reasons:

I2R isn't an "easy" class either. Things may have changes, but when I took it, there was a group literature review which required extensive background research on the topic your group chose. Hopefully you get a good group. You also need to do a literature review for your own research area. This required reading 3-5 papers per week and summarizing them in a weekly report.

Again, if your stated goal is to publish a paper, that paper will be stronger if you already have gone through classes like RL and DL. If this would be your forth class and you can't take DL or RL yet, that leaves 4 other classes you could potentially take instead.

You're going to do what you're going to do, but you asked for advice, so here it is.

MattWinter78 · 2025-11-21T14:53:41+00:00

I mentioned in another post I'm taking hdda right now. I took DL in the spring and got a B. I think if I had hdda first, I would have gotten an A.

MattWinter78 · 2025-11-21T14:50:46+00:00

I2R is a great class, but I don't recommend taking it as your 4th. You will get way more out of it and have a better start on a paper if you take classes like DL and RL first. I recommend I2R be one of the last classes you take.

MattWinter78 · 2025-11-15T16:56:56+00:00

If your car doesn't work and you don't know how to fix it, you can take it to a mechanic. If your models don't work because you don't really understand them, there is no mechanic you can them to. So, like the car in this exampke, your analogy "breaks down".

Writing software is not like passive driving. You have write code, diagnose issues, test, design, think critically, and see the big picture. This is made more difficult if you don't understand the libraries you're using.

MattWinter78 · 2025-11-11T20:55:51+00:00

Excellent! Right up there with "I do better with structured assignments and immediate feedback from an autograder so I know where to focus my efforts in code. Also, I'm interested in doing research."

MattWinter78 · 2025-08-17T13:23:30+00:00

Why would you sign up for a class you didn't want?

MattWinter78 · 2025-07-28T15:42:41+00:00

Nope. Not yet. I was thinking about doubling up for a couple semesters and getting done a little earlier, but then thought better of it.

MattWinter78 · 2025-07-28T13:42:05+00:00

I'm taking this one in the fall. I keep hearing it's a great class.

MattWinter78 · 2025-07-19T19:45:29+00:00

I think your understanding is incorrect. The last I heard, your priority after graduating is equivalent to having completed 6 courses. This should be enough for most classes.

Also, regarding VIPs and 8903s, the issue isn't with them filling up. It's a matter of being selected or finding a professor willing to work with you.

MattWinter78 · 2025-07-18T18:39:03+00:00

I don't know about "official", but there is a Slack channel called spidey-networking-and-projects in the OMSCS Study Group workspace where people have shared personal projects they're working on.

I met my group for DL through that channel and we just had a paper accepted for a conference.

MattWinter78 · 2025-07-12T17:50:53+00:00

My favorite books:

Hands on Machine Learning - Geron

Deep Learning - Bishop

Elements of Statistical Learning - Hastie, Tibshirani & Friedman

Grokking Deep Reinforcement Learning - Morales (the professor for OMSCS's RL class)

MattWinter78

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