Exploring NLP — A journey through the depths
Hello, I am Deepthi Sudharsan, a 3rd-year Undergraduate pursuing B.Tech in Artificial Intelligence. Given I am already in my 3rd year and mock interviews have started in my college, I was still trying to decide on what I am most interested in. I have always loved learning new things that I had never thought about sticking to one and exploring completely as I am distracted by some other new technology or concept. So keeping myself on a single path, exploring the depths of a single subject never struck me until I knew I had to face the question, “What do I want to do?”.
Artificial Intelligence is such an interesting domain to be in and I wanted to narrow down and focus on something that really stuck with me. And this all started when I did an end-semester project (NLP based) in Semester 3 under one of my favorite faculties and now that project seems very basic given how much I have learned and expanded my knowledge in it, that project had some connection with me. I really enjoyed every process of doing that project and in every interview, when they ask me to talk about my projects, I mention that special attachment I have to that one. Let’s now jump to last semester. I wrote an NLP paper with one of my best friends and it all took me back to that one project in Semester 3. It felt the same.
So, this semester, I took it upon myself to explore this field in depth. And what more to keep in focus than challenging yourself and setting your goal. So I thought until I land an NLP job (or maybe even after that if I can juggle between time and work), I will do a small self-assessment series by posting everything that I am learning step-by-step. So my Medium posts will serve as a progress keeper for my learnings. Now, I might make mistakes along the way or might get stuck in between concepts and all are free to help me because I do want to learn and make mistakes here so that I get guidance from many. So feel free to correct me, teach me, support me, and guide me in the comments section.
Hoping to start it soon, wish me luck!
