I like the idea of treating this series as a personal log. A bit nerdy, a bit structured, something that marks progress. So here it is: Log Entry 001.
The year is still young, and so is my path toward becoming an AI engineer. Time to take the first real step.
Recently I decided to go for the AI‑900 certification. It is the most basic AI certification on Azure, but that is exactly why it feels right. I want to build a solid foundation instead of jumping straight into the deep end. Understanding the principles behind AI services, machine learning basics and how Microsoft structures its ecosystem will help me later when things get more complex.
Learning for AI‑900 also forces me to zoom out. I get to revisit ideas that I have seen many times over the years, but with a fresh perspective. Things like supervised learning, responsible AI, cognitive services, classification and prediction. Nothing too complex, but enough to get my brain into AI mode again.
My plan for the next days is simple. Read, try things out and write down what I discover. As with everything in tech, theory alone does not stick. So I want to get hands‑on as early as possible. Azure has plenty of small playgrounds for this exam, and I want to use them.
In addition to the official Microsoft learning path, I bought a book called Machine Learning and AI by Sebastian Raschka. This book is completely out of my comfort zone, but I like it. It opens up things I never thought about. Sure, I learned linear algebra back in my math classes, but for the past 15 years I didn’t even think about it. I am at least happy that I remembered parts of it, which reminds me that you don’t just learn useless stuff when studying.
So yes, this book will keep me busy for a while. It is packed with information, way too dense to read in one go.
To prepare myself better for the exam I bought an exam prep course on Whizlabs, just to study with as much focus as possible. This exam prep consists of a lot of mock questions that are pretty close to the actual exam. I used a similar prep for my AZ‑900, and it helped a lot. The built‑in Microsoft assessment is just a bunch of checkboxes, but the real exam had drag and drop, sentence completion and many other formats.
Anyway, I just scheduled the exam: 26 February.
Yes, right, next Thursday...
So ... this is Log Entry 001.
This log will follow my progress. Not perfect, not structured for a textbook, but honest and curious. If I learn something useful, I will bring it here. If I hit a wall, I will write about that too.
Cheers
Pat
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