Preparation Guide - MSc in Machine Learning

The programme directors strongly recommends that you study certain pieces of technical subject matter that you have to be familiar and comfortable with before the MSc in Machine Learning starts in September. You may study the material on your or you may opt to take courses at your local university. You should know the general math pre-requisites and have some previous programming experience in a high-level programming language. If you are really keen you may have a first look at the general machine learning and subject-specific books. You may try to get those books from your local library, purchase used books, buy them as hard-cover or try to get them as ebook. Google Book Search offers an extract for copyrighted books and the full version for books where the copyright has expired.

• General math pre-requisites • Machine Learning Books • Subject Preparation Books • Programming and computational requirements

Finally two books which are less on the technical side but more on the motivational side what can be done with machine learning techniques in an industrial context.

The book 'Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning' by T. H. Davenport and J. G. Harris discusses Business Intelligence and Web Analytics which are driving corporate business performance these days. Sophisticated analysis of extensive complex data as commonly encountered in leading companies and professional sport teams requires advanced statistical approaches to yield a competitive advantage which is due to sound decision-making.

Ian Ayres wrote the book Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart which discusses the options and prospect of statistical analysis and how decisions are increasingly automated. Discussed problems range from the prediction of wine quality, medical diagnostics within personalized healthcare, air travel pricing, online partnership agencies, selecting and purchasing players in competitive sport teams to guiding decision processes in politics and law.

'I found the master a very challenging and fulfilling course. It gave me a wide scope of knowledge that allowed me to discovery a niche that really interested me. I began working on creating a robot snake that used shape changing metals as its motors and was controlled by Artificial Intelligence, specifically genetic algorithms.' Siavash H. Mahdavi, Managing Director Complex Matters