ml-class.org does a phenomenal job in equipping you with the practical knowledge needed to apply the tools of machine learning to real problems.
There is no reason why learning to use these tools should be hard. If you want a challenge, there are plenty of problems in the world amenable to solution via machine learning, especially in today's data deluge.
If you want a deep mathematical appreciation of the algorithms and their derivation, you should do CS229, not CS229a.
ml-class.org does a phenomenal job in equipping you with the practical knowledge needed to apply the tools of machine learning to real problems.
There is no reason why learning to use these tools should be hard. If you want a challenge, there are plenty of problems in the world amenable to solution via machine learning, especially in today's data deluge.
If you want a deep mathematical appreciation of the algorithms and their derivation, you should do CS229, not CS229a.