You included machine learning in with LLMs in your root post. Try training a supervised model for some task, like an image classifier or a detector. LLMs have not replaced convolutional models, and even transformers can be used for non-NLP tasks. The idea this is somehow not professional is not true. Despite what people would have you believe, ResNet50 fine-tuned on a good dataset is still competent. In many environments there isn’t enough compute for bigger models, and large language models aren’t always the best choice.

You also don’t have to go straight into LLMs. You can learn most of the training mechanics via classic deep learning. It isn’t much different with LLMs except the training data and losses are specific and the models are much larger.