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Essential Skills You Need When Starting an Online Degree

Studying online is an exciting step in your education. This move into advanced learning provides a range of opportunities once you complete your studies. Many skills are learned along the way, but there are a few attributes that will help when you take the leap into higher education.

To prepare you for your studies, check out these skills that make online learning more manageable.

Working independently

When undertaking an online bachelor degree, working independently is a significant part of the course. There is help available from faculty and peers. However, you will learn to be comfortable working without people around you. Independent learning is a great skill to have as you enter the workplace. While teamwork is essential, individual projects will also play a substantial role in your career.

Researching skills

Researching skills are another critical element in online studies. This attribute will ensure you can find reliable sources and examine data effectively. Most of your researching skills will evolve from high school education and look more in-depth at information to support your assignments and project work. Throughout an online degree, you will also need to learn more formal ways of writing and displaying data, including using appropriate referencing.

Communication skills

Online learning is different from traditional study, so communication skills are vital to improving the experience. Active listening is a crucial element to focus on during webinar sessions. Understanding language, tone of voice, and cues make learning easier. Confidence is another aspect of communication. You will need to feel comfortable asking questions (even if you think they’re stupid ones!). Questioning and asking for help is a vital part of understanding course material and helps to improve success.

Time management

Any online university course will push the limits of your time management skills. There will be a lot of work to do, especially if you’re juggling work, life, and studies. Focus on self-motivation and organization and start to prepare your workload and deadlines ahead of schedule. Managing your time will help you feel less stressed and more comfortable about the work at hand.

Reading skills

While you might not have a ton of tangible reading material in front of you, that doesn’t mean an online degree doesn’t have any. An online course will provide a wide range of materials to resource and use throughout the course. So developing your reading techniques is critical. Check out ways of speed-reading to help if you’re a slower reader. Learning reading skills also helps to improve written skills.

Essay writing

Different online degrees have different styles of assignments and projects. However, many will still have a significant chunk of essays to write. Using well-written and grammatically correct wording forms good essay writing. Plus, ensuring clear and consistent language is another crucial aspect. Much of your previous essay writing skills will come from high school but studying for an online degree takes it up a notch. If you need assistance in this area, check out the range of resources to make the transition easier.

 

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When Should I Use Random Forest?

If you want to hop on the artificial intelligence bandwagon, it’s time to understand random forest algorithms and random forest modeling. Random forest is a regulated form of the machine learning algorithm. It’s one of the most common algorithms because of its pristine accuracy and user-friendly characteristics. It’s often used for regression tasks as well as classification duties. Subsequently, random forest makes it easy to monitor and track a wide range of data situations.

To understand random forest, it’s important to be familiar with decision trees which are basically the foundations of the random forest model. According to TIBCO, decision trees are something that you most likely use every day in your life. Just like an actual forest with real trees, a random forest is a group of decision trees—hence the name. Already, you’re able to get a clear vision of how this data model works.

Decision trees are support tools that use a tree-like design of data decisions and their possible outcomes. A decision tree is useful for separating data using their own specific features often through visual aids such as numbers and varying colors. Decision trees in random forest are one of the easiest algorithms to display different data and their consequences. Keep reading to learn more about when to use random forest.

Supervised Learning

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The random forest is a supervised learning algorithm. Supervised learning is the simplest of all the machine learning methods and, therefore, easier than unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning, and deep learning. Therefore, if the problem you are trying to solve requires a highly sophisticated algorithm, then a random forest classifier is not what you need.

Ensemble Modeling

Random forest is also a form of ensemble modeling. Ensemble modeling relies on the majority vote principle—wisdom in numbers. That is why random forest modeling uses a large number of trees rather than a single decision tree.

Ensemble modeling is important when you need clean data. You get clean data by maintaining a low bias and a low variance. Your data gets dirty when you have a high bias and/or a high variance and/or when noise enters your dataset. Therefore, if scrubbing up your data so that it’s sparkly and clean, without a high bias or a high variance, then a random forest algorithm is a good fit for you. However, if you like your data raw and dirty and having a high variance and/or high bias is not that big a deal, then using a single decision tree might be suit you better.

Decision Tree Algorithms

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Decision tree algorithms are perfect for busy companies. Random forest algorithms rely heavily on decision trees so if your business depends on decision trees, then random forest algorithms are perfect for you.

Random forest is well suited to basic regression problems and basic classification problems. For a regression task, random forest actually makes use of regression trees. The random forest algorithm is also useful as one of the many types of classification algorithms. If you are trying to solve regression problems or classification problems, then random forest is the most optimal algorithm for you.

Linear Regression

When random forest is used to solve regression problems, it’s a form of linear regression, which is a relatively simple form of regression. If you need a more sophisticated regression model, logistic regression is the model for you.

Linear regression is good for making accurate predictions, with a relatively high degree of prediction accuracy, provided that you use a random forest algorithm with bootstrap aggregation—a.k.a. bagged trees. However, if you want to map out actual probabilities, linear regression will not suffice. For that, you need a logistic regression model, preferably in Python.

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Tips on Nurturing Mental Health After a Sports Injury

Sport is seen by many as a way of life, more than game to be played as a pastime, but rather a process through which people find fulfillment and shape their purpose in life.

Finding that purpose in jeopardy after suffering an injury can be an extremely difficult concept to deal with, one that takes its toll on the mental and the physical aspects of life.

If this is starting to sound all too familiar, it might be worth checking out these tips on how to nurture your mental health throughout your recovery.

Coping with the Stress of Persistent Pain

Persistent pain and mental health are in many ways, inseparable throughout every stage of recovery.

Persistent pain from an injury of any kind can have negative, lasting effects on the brain, so managing stress is a must if you wish to avoid spiraling.

A few techniques include:

  • Learning to understand your emotions
  • Meditating
  • Discussing your situation out loud with loved ones
  • Seeking a counselor
  • Reading reliable self-help sources online

Exploring Possible Treatments

Suffering in silence while drifting without direction can be a dismal affair that only leads to more stress and negativity.

It might be worth exploring some alternative treatments, like cutting-edge stem cell procedures that may even prevent the need for surgery altogether. It is likely worth seeking expert advice at bioxcellerator.com if you feel as though you want to find out more.

It’s Okay to Have Time Out

Being sidelined from your favorite sport (although distressing and upsetting at the time) is not the end of your sporting endeavors, no matter how much it might seem like it right now.

In fact, having time out, away from the pitch or the track is essential for athletes, as it helps them avoid burnout and lets their bodies rest when they need it most.

Feeling sad is okay and acknowledging difficult feelings can help you work through your situation.

Keep Your Mind Engaged

Just because you are away from sport and dealing with an injury, there is no need to let your mind suffer. Keeping it in engaged is an important part of mental exercise, and it can even make you feel better about your circumstances.

Reading is a great way to do this, as is learning a new language or writing, all of which can be done from the comfort of your home on a mobile device.

This is perhaps less about distracting yourself from the situation and more about nourishing your thoughts in order to help you tackle the present.

Find Inspiration from Other Athletes

Although everyone is unique and their situations will be much different, it is still worth turning to the professional sporting world to see how the elites cope with their injuries.

Even at the highest level of competition, injuries are still prevalent, and some of the world’s greatest athletes suffered career-threatening injures, yet made a full recovery.

Finding inspiration in the real-life stories of athletes such as Zlatan Ibrahimović, Lindsey Vonn, and Tiger Woods, might be the motivation you need to look after your mind throughout your journey back to sport.

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5 Tips For Figuring Out What You Want To Do With Your Life

Whether you’re fresh out of college, looking for a career change, or planning your retirement – figuring out what you want to do with your life can be a loaded, complicated, and stressful decision for sure. Unfortunately, no one can tell you what to do. These are things you have to decide on your own and you may find yourself having to do a little soul-searching while thinking about it. Here are 5 tips to help you figure out what you want to do with your life.

Follow Your Heart

Sometimes following your heart or intuition might mean making a decision that doesn’t seem so logical. Remind yourself that this is OK sometimes. People around you, even those that love you and want what’s best for you, will not always understand or support your decisions but as long as you’re happy that’s all that matters. Put yourself above everyone else when you need to and listen to your heart whenever you can.

Ask For Advice

Asking friends, family members, or even strangers for advice can be great for helping you make important decisions. For example, if you are thinking about becoming a firefighter, consider talking to a current or former firefighter if you can get in contact with one. They might tell you some things you wouldn’t already know, such as the importance of being tech-savvy enough to use a mobile device to stay in communication with other firefighters during a mission. Small things like this can be surprising and may make you either want to do the job more or shy away from it.

Get Inspiration From Others

It’s easy to lose motivation sometimes. This happens to everyone. Just make sure you don’t allow yourself to stay down in the dumps and try to get some inspiration wherever you can. You can look to the internet, celebrities, friends, or even strangers on the street for a little bit of inspiration when it comes to big (or small) life choices. Get inspired by seeing how happy or fulfilled other people are with what they’re doing. Being witness to this may make you want to do the same!

Slow Down

Take your time and be patient with yourself as you figure things out. Just because you are a little slower than others in your circle or feel like you’re behind where you should be doesn’t mean you should rush when thinking about your next move. Slow down, breathe, and consider all options.

No matter what juncture you’re at, figuring out what you want or need to do with the rest of your life probably won’t be easy. Go easy on yourself. Follow these tips and before you know it you’ll be living your very best life!

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Why this winter is going to rock more than usual!

Winter holidays offer many advantages and are suited to the whole family. They give holiday-goers the ability to try new things and explore cities in a whole new light. Here are some ways that winter offers unique advantages for skiers and other tourists looking to travel this year.

You can make new discoveries

In winter, you can rediscover cities that you’ve visited before. You can better understand a cities’ cultural traditions or explore indoor attractions that you wouldn’t otherwise discover when basking under the sun. Winter holidays are a unique experience that allow you to create memorable experiences and make new hobbies.

You’ll witness great views

Winter holidays offer new sights and views when compared to summer holidays. Instead of staring at the shoreline as you lay on the beach, you can view nature from a new standpoint during winter. You get to see new animals, transitioning landscapes, and more. Winter offers great photo opportunities which add to the festivities.

They’re a lot cheaper when compared to other seasons

Winter is a budget-friendly option for holiday-goers as travel agents and airline companies usually promote their own deals or packages. What’s more, you’re more likely to spend your holiday in a cosy log cabin than splash out on extravagant hotels that up the price of the holiday. This means that you can set more money aside for trips and excursions for the whole family.

They offer new opportunities

Winter holidays give you the opportunity to try new activities and foster new hobbies. There are more traditional options, such as snowboarding and skiing, but you can also try more exciting activities – such as hiking. With the right equipment, you can venture through frozen landscapes, tranquil forests and snowy hillsides. If the weather gets too much, there are several indoor opportunities too. You can walk around the local art galleries or simply curl up next to the fire in your cosy cabin.

Engage with holiday festivities

Seasonal activities and events are prevalent all across the globe. There are various sightseeing and nativity-inspired tours to choose from, or you can take a stroll through the city’s Christmas markets. European countries celebrate Christmas in their own style, and this offers you the opportunity to learn new traditions and incorporate them into your own next year.

With these ideas in mind, this winter is going to be more fun than usual. When booking your next winter getaway, consider what activities you’d like to try or which markets you’d like to visit. Piste Pro have lots of useful info for skiers on their website, including maps and guides.