Computer Vision News - June 2020

3 Summary Rachel pykerman 41 You decided to study privately instead of going down a well-defined path in education. How did you make that decision? You have two options at that point. You can either get a master’s degree from a university or you can go the self-taught route. I decided that I wanted to get back into the field within a fewmonths. Living in Silicon Valley, I really banked on the fact that there are so many startups here that might be willing to just hire you, even if it’s not for a lot of money. You can show that you’ve done these projects. I know I’m starting out, but I’m willing to learn and push myself however I can. I did have that electrical engineering background, which still flows over into the robotics field. I was really able to leverage that, as well as all of my studying, and get my foot into the door. That was my goal, to get my foot in and just go from there. Do you ever regret that you didn’t do a PhD? I’m hitting that point now actually. It’s incredible. You can learn a lot with the courses online. There’s Coursera and all these online programs. You can learn a lot from that. I’ve actually just recently decided to also do my master’s. I’m starting a master’s from Georgia Tech starting this September. I found that if you transition yourself, you can learn a lot on the job. To really get a formal education is that extra step. Once you "If you can do it, just do it! " know that you want to be in this field, then I definitely think that getting that master’s or PhD is really good.