Random Forest Classifier: Data Prep to Model Training

Train a random forest classifier on the prepared training data.

Machine learning models often require extensive data preparation, yet the actual training can occur in just a few lines of code. Learn how to quickly build and train a random forest classifier with Python.

Key Insights

  • Creating and training a random forest classifier in Python can be achieved efficiently using minimal code, despite extensive preliminary tasks like data cleaning and formatting.
  • The training process involves fitting the model with "X train" data and corresponding labels to enable the classifier to learn from provided examples.
  • After successfully training the random forest classifier, the next step is typically evaluating its performance using a separate test dataset.

Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.

It's honestly always a little bit of a letdown when you actually create a model and train it, because you put all this work into training the data, getting the data into the right format, doing data analysis, and then there's two lines of code to actually, you know, run the data. So let's create a random forest classifier model. I'm going to call it model, and I'm going to call it what we get when we call random forest classifier.

And I'm going to say model.fit(X_train, y_train), and here's the answer. So you can start to learn it. And I forgot to actually run this line, of course.

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And there we go. We have a random forest classifier trained on our data. We're going to work with our test data next.

Colin Jaffe

Colin Jaffe is a programmer, writer, and teacher with a passion for creative code, customizable computing environments, and simple puns. He loves teaching code, from the fundamentals of algorithmic thinking to the business logic and user flow of application building—he particularly enjoys teaching JavaScript, Python, API design, and front-end frameworks.

Colin has taught code to a diverse group of students since learning to code himself, including young men of color at All-Star Code, elementary school kids at The Coding Space, and marginalized groups at Pursuit. He also works as an instructor for Noble Desktop, where he teaches classes in the Full-Stack Web Development Certificate and the Data Science & AI Certificate.

Colin lives in Brooklyn with his wife, two kids, and many intricate board games.

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