Daniel Bourke starts a machine learning engineering internship after a year of self-study. He woke up at 5 AM to prepare, nervous about whether his knowledge matches professional standards but excited to work on real problems instead of just studying.
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What is going on, guys? Welcome back to another video. It's your boy Daniel Bourke, and my voice is a bit weird at the moment because I just woke up and it is like 5:40 something AM. And why am I up so early? Well, I've been getting up early the past few days because I've been finding it's, it's really good. Like, I get up, I get a few things done, and then by the time it's 9 AM, I've, I've completed half the things I want to do for the day. But Besides from getting up early, I'm really excited for today because today is the day! It's the day! What day is it? Well, I'm starting an internship today. So, in case you're not aware, but I've been studying AI for the past year or so, and now I'm going into my home city today to meet a team that work on some machine learning all kinds of different technology problems.
And essentially, how did this happen?
I met with the head of health at the AI space, at the AI company, and on Monday, and he said, we got into conversation and I said, I'm looking to get some commercial experience because I've been a student for so long and I wanna get into the world and I wanna start building some things and I need to understand how it's done in the in a commercial setting. And he's like, well, do you want to come in on Thursday? And that's where we are now. I'm really excited. Actually, I'll tell you, if I'm honest, I'm pretty scared, right? Because I'm excited and scared because, I mean, at the end of the day, I'm a student, I've built some projects, but these guys are working on the real deal. So I'm not entirely sure if what I've learned will be up to par, if you know what I mean. It's sort of, these fears, they're things you've got to battle, and I mean, at the worst case, it's going to be a great learning experience, and I'll know where I'll need to improve. I'm heading in there for today, and I'll let you know how it goes. That was an awesome morning.
It's only around just after lunchtime now, so about 12:30 or so, and why am I home so early? Well, today was about a meet and greet, which I think is so important if you're going into to any company or anything really. The people, ultimately, it's the people that you work with that will sort of, you're the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with, right? And if you work with great people, you're gonna be great. And if you work with bad people, oh, it's not gonna turn out too well, right? And so I met Adam, who's the AI lead. So nice to meet you, Adam. I actually met Adam about 7 or so months ago at a meetup. So it was good to catch up again. That's what's important, guys, as well. Go to meetups, like, if you can, or if not, create your own. That way, the more people you meet in the industry you want to get into, the better it is. I mean, it's not who you know, it's who knows you. So, so, people are so important. Relationships are so important. And I also met Lachlan, who's the marketing lead. It was really great to chat with them, see what actual projects they're working on, and we kind of discussed like where where my strengths are, where my weaknesses are, and where it's best for me to learn. And so, we've kind of like, I'm gonna hear back in the next few days what the next steps are, like what the plan is, whether I come in 1 or 2 days a week, 1 or 3 days a week, who knows. Today was more of a meet and greet and catch up, get to know each other kind of thing. What am I doing for the rest of the day? Well, I don't have anything planned because I was kind of considering I'd be there till the end of the day and then I'd work out and then That'll be almost today over. So I figured I'm going to treat myself with a video from the MIT AGI course or the self-driving cars course. I haven't decided which one yet. And then otherwise, I've definitely still got a few, few little things to take care of on the term 2 of the AI Nanodegree. So I'll probably check out the next steps for that. But so excited. Gonna get experience in the field of AI. Well, fingers crossed. If not, what's the best way to get experience? Build your own thing. So if this doesn't work out, we'll try building something. And if that doesn't work out, well, we'll keep trying. That's important. As soon as I find out more about this internship, I'll let you know.
