7 Best Machine Learning Courses for Beginners and Advanced

The goal of machine learning is to develop computer programs that can automatically improve their performance on a specific task, without any explicit instructions on how to do so.

Machine learning algorithms build a mathematical model from input data to find patterns and make predictions about future events based on what they learned.

The process is less an explicit programming, but more of a training process in which the computer learns from examples and makes predictions.

There are so many courses out there that it can be hard to find the best courses. Below I'll give you my selections for the best 7 ML courses for beginners and advanced.

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1. Machine Learning Specialization (Coursera)

This specialization, offered by the University of Washington, will introduce you to machine learning through a series of practical case studies.

You'll gain hands-on experience about how to analyze large datasets, create systems that improve over time, make predictions from data by building intelligent applications.

The courses included in this specialization are:

• Machine Learning Foundations: A Case Study Approach
• Machine Learning: Regression
• Machine Learning: Classification
• Machine Learning: Clustering & Retrieval

Price: Free to audit, $49/month for graded assignments and Certificate 

Course Rating: 4.7/5 (12,122 ratings)

Requirements: Beginner Python programmers

Visit the course here.

2. IBM Machine Learning Professional Certificate (Coursera)

This Professional Certificate from IBM is for those who want to develop their skills in the main topics of ML: Supervised Learning, Unsupervised Learning, Deep Learning, and Reinforcement Learning.

This specialization also covers special topics, including Time Series Analysis and Survival Analysis.

The courses included in this specialization are:

• Exploratory Data Analysis for Machine Learning
• Supervised Machine Learning: Regression
• Supervised Machine Learning: Classification
• Unsupervised Machine Learning
• Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning
• Specialized Models: Time Series and Survival Analysis

Before taking this specialization you should have some background in Python programming, statistics, and linear algebra

Price: Free to audit, $49/month for graded assignments and Certificate

Course Rating: 4.7/5 (571 ratings)

Requirements: background in Math, Stats, and Python

If you choose to pay for this specialization, you'll get a Professional Certificate from Coursera and a digital Badge from IBM after completing all of the courses in the program.

Visit the course here.

3. Machine Learning with Python (Coursera)

This is a beginner course from IBM that will teach you the basics of machine learning.

You'll work with real-world examples and create projects including cancer detection, predicting economic trends, predicting customer churn, and more.

The course is structured as follows:

• Introduction to Machine Learning
• Regression
• Classification
• Clustering
• Recommender Systems
• Final Project

Price: Free to audit, $49/month for graded assignments and Certificate

Course Rating: 4.7stars (12,193 ratings)

Requirements: Not mentioned in the course but at least basic familiarity with Python

Visit the course here.

4. Intro to Machine Learning with TensorFlow (Udacity)

With this Nanodegree from Udacity, you'll learn the foundational machine learning algorithms including data manipulation, data cleaning, supervised, and unsupervised algorithms.

You'll also learn how to perform feature engineering to improve the performance of your models, optimize and improve algorithms, compare the performances of learned models.

This Nanodegree includes 3 courses:

• Supervised Learning
• Deep Learning
• Unsupervised Learning

Price: $399/month but you can receive up to 75% off the regular price

Course Rating: 4.7stars (360 ratings)

Requirements: Intermediate Python programming knowledge and basic knowledge of probability and statistics

You can take the AI Programming with Python Nanodegree program if you don't have these requirements.

Visit the course here.

5. Machine Learning Scientist with Python (Datacamp)

This career track that comprises 23 courses will teach you the skill set in an interactive way to perform supervised, unsupervised, and deep learning.

You'll be introduced to topics like natural language processing, image processing, time series, feature engineering, cluster analysis, and libraries such as Spark and Keras.

Price: $15/month

Requirements: Beginner Python programming

Visit the course here.

6. Machine Learning A-Z™: Hands-On Python & R In Data Science (Udemy)

This is an in-depth course that will help you master machine learning with Python and R in a hands-on way.

Each part is provided in Python and R and the content is similar so you can choose to follow the course for only one language or both.

The course is divided into 10 parts which are:

1. Data Preprocessing
2. Regression
3. Classification
4. Clustering
5. Association Rule Learning
6. Reinforcement Learning
7. Natural Language Processing
8. Deep Learning
9. Dimensionality Reduction
10.  Model Selection & Boosting

The course also contains practical exercises that are based on real-life examples to help you get hands-on practice building models.

The course includes: 

• 44 hours on-demand video
• 73 articles
• 38 downloadable resources

Price: $84.99

Course Rating: 4.5/5 (156,753 ratings) 856,434 students

Requirements: Basic knowledge of Python and mathematics

You can buy the course on Udemy here.

7. Python for Data Science and Machine Learning Bootcamp (Udemy)

This is a comprehensive course that will teach you how to use Python to analyze data, create beautiful visualizations, and use machine learning algorithms.

Some of the topics that are covered in the course are:

• NumPy and Pandas with Python
• Web scraping with python
• Use Matplotlib and seaborn for data visualizations
• Linear Regression
• K Nearest Neighbors
• Support Vector Machines
• K Means Clustering
• Decision Trees
• Random Forests
• Natural Language Processing
• Neural Nets and Deep Learning
• and more

The course includes: 

• 25 hours on-demand video
• 13 articles
• 5 downloadable resources

Price: $119.99

Course Rating: 4.6/5 (111,991 ratings) 522,193 students

Requirements: Basic knowledge of Python and mathematics

There is a section in the course to teach you Python but it is preferable to have some knowledge of Python before taking the course.

You can buy the course on Udemy here.