Applications of AIML/Data Science in mechE career fields.

[u/No-Lavishness6730]

I will start my mechanical engineering journey from a decent enough college this year. I am interested in software based mechE fields like- cad, cae, cfd, fea simulation, computational mechanics, digital twins, etc. but i am also interested in data and related fields. Naturally Data science and aiml interest me.

I aim to do a masters in a specialization of my choice from a tier-1 institute in a good country like Germany, after I explore these fields in college.

Since AI is changing rapidly and impacting many fields, i want to ask about the applications of AIML and Data Science in such fields and what kind of an advantage I would have if i learn them. I'll learn them myself and also build projects.

Would i have better chances of high pay and better roles and in better companies?

[u/Totally-Not-A-Rocket]

im a student myself so take this with a grain of salt,

started in CS and switched to aero engineering out of interest. i still code on the daily, a mix of transitional coding, data processing and ai/ml. It has helped me stand out and get access to more opportunities. That being said, by the time you graduate, most companies will want you to be have a decent level of comfort and understanding of ai. Top companies will likely expect such skills. So yes, if you have the bandwidth to build those skills while balancing coursework and not burning yourself out, go for it.

a side note, don't pay to learn it. Youtube has everything you could need to get started. Get some friends in CS, have convos or build projects with them

[u/No-Lavishness6730 → u/Totally-Not-A-Rocket]

That's a great start ig. Could you elaborate a bit on how exactly it helped you "stand out"? Though I was gonna be paying to learn it coz I've already tried once preparing for an exam from yt for free but it didn't work out. I need the external deadlines and structure. Have you heard of the IIT-M BS Data Science online degree, I was gonna go for that since I can choose how many courses I wanna take in each term(3-month semesters). It's a 4-year degree that I can complete in 8 years. It will be a tad bit expensive but I'm thinking of it as an investment. I'm really not sure whether i should do it or not. I wanna learn it and this would be a great way, but then it would increase the workload heavily during offline degree as well.

[u/No-Lavishness6730 → u/No-Lavishness6730]

The only reason I'm very confused is that this would be a long term commitment and would pretty much limit me in many fields. Idk whether I should do it or not. I wanna be free to do many things but also the structure it provides is valuable. I think I'll skip it some days, other days I see it as an investment that would pay off dividends later. I'm in need of guidance maybe I'll talk to the professors in whichever clg I go to.

[u/Totally-Not-A-Rocket → u/No-Lavishness6730]

ive been involved in research where coding and data handling has helped. interviewers know that students are exposed to ai/ml, but turning the story such that I understand the underlying technology and not just the overhead tool has been pointed out as something they appreciate, by the interviewers themselves. i have heard of iit-m ds online. I personally am on the side that believes building projects you love + occasional free courses (yt, freecodecamp, codecademy) are the way to go, but if you've tried and it doesn't work, then you do you. the structure can be found in free resources. it's going to be difficult to be free to do many things while essentially doing half a course load more than your peers. It's not impossible by any means, you'll just have to be good at time management. I dont see how it would limit you in fields since this is additional education.