How Can I Build CS and AI Experience When I Feel Behind?
Asked by
MellowPine47
I'm double majoring in cognitive science and psychology, and I'm especially interested in artificial intelligence and developing AI models. I've been taking computer science courses alongside my degree and practicing programming, but I often feel behind students majoring in CS.
I'm unsure how to move forward. I feel like I need side projects and a strong portfolio to apply for internships or AI research opportunities, but I don't know where to begin and worry that I'm not qualified enough yet. I've applied to several research opportunities through my school without being accepted, which has made my goals feel unrealistic. What would be a practical way to build my skills and experience from here?
Answers
Learning a lower-level language such as C can help you understand memory, pointers, compilation, and how programs work underneath higher-level libraries. It isn’t required for getting started in AI, though, so treat it as a longer-term way to deepen your computer science foundation rather than a prerequisite for building projects now.
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Don’t wait until you have a huge, polished project before applying. Pick one small idea you genuinely find interesting and finish it—for example, classifying a few types of images or automating a repetitive task with a script. An imperfect completed project will teach you more than an ambitious project you abandon, and it can become the foundation for something larger later.
Also, keep applying for internships and research opportunities while you learn. You don’t have to meet every listed qualification to be considered; applications themselves are part of gaining experience.
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A good starting path would be to strengthen your Python fundamentals, then work through basic data structures, linear algebra, statistics, and introductory machine learning. Build small projects alongside each topic so you can demonstrate what you learned. Your background in cognitive science and psychology can also be useful for areas such as human-computer interaction, computational cognition, and responsible AI, so you don’t necessarily need to compete only as a general CS student.
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MellowPine47: That makes sense. I’ll focus on Python and small AI projects first, then use C later to fill in lower-level CS concepts instead of trying to learn everything at once.