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How to Start Competing on Kaggle

Chirag Chadha
Towards Data Science
10 min readApr 28, 2019

You’ve just completed your first machine learning course and you’re not sure where to begin applying your newfound knowledge. You could start small by playing with the Iris dataset or combing through the Titanic records (and this is probably the first thing that you should do). But what’s more fun than jumping straight in and competing with random strangers on the internet for money?

If you’re reading this article, you probably already know that Kaggle is a data science competition platform where enthusiasts compete in a range of machine learning topics, using structured (numerical and/or categorical data in tabular format) and unstructured data (e.g. text/images/audio), with the aim of securing prize money and a coveted Kaggle gold medal. Although you might find the idea of competing with others to be daunting, it’s important to remember that the goal is always to learn as much as possible and not to focus on results. Through this mindset, you will find that competitions become fun, rewarding, and even addictive.

First steps in choosing a competition

Find a competition that interests you.

This is the most important thing to consider when beginning a new competition. You want to give yourself about two months to tease through a problem and really become comfortable with the ins and outs…

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Towards Data Science
Towards Data Science

Published in Towards Data Science

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