[nafizh]

This type of condescension is precisely why I am glad I was introduced to the field of ML/pattern recognition/statistical learning (whatever you want to call) through a course from the CS department rather than the statistics department.

I have always felt course offerings from CS are more approachable/amenable to beginners in this area. Maybe anecdotal, but statistics depts. have a gate-keeping attitude , a sense of 'oh you don't know the math already? too bad, we are not for you'.

P.S: Approachable/amenable does not mean it cannot be rigorous or you have to cut short the math. You just built up gradually rather than throwing math books in people's face from the very beginning.