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Ask HN: Is it a waste of time to teach yourself data science without a degree?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it a waste of time to teach yourself data science without a degree?

#21

Post by itamarst »

(copied from answer to another similar question.)

Companies are looking for what you as a candidate can do for them.

Self-study or taking a class signals some level of "I tried to learn this thing." So that's a start.

Even better is "I built X", where X is obviously based on skill you learned. In which case you can omit the class because you have proof of learning, not just trying to learn.

Even better is "I provided business value V to my employer by building X." Because now you're showing how this skill is useful to someone else. So using skill at work is another thing to try.

Ideal is you write the above, but emphasize V (or choose between multiple things you can list) in a way that suggests you can help the needs of the particular company you're applying to.

So there's having the skill (which is good), but there's also how you present it to show it will provide value (also important).

More on the contrast between having engineering skills and marketing yourself here: https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/01/19/specialist-vs-genera...

Re: Ask HN: Is it a waste of time to teach yourself data science without a degree?

#22

Post by CCing »

NumberCruncher wrote: post #9

It depends on how you define "data science". If you are like AWS and say that using logistic regression is machine learning, then yes, you can teach yourself data science. Learn SQL, read a couple of books on logistic regression, use some open data for building a couple of models. There are many companies where you can have a decent job and an easy living with SQL and logistic regression on your tool belt. If you say…

self driving cars like comma.ai done by george hotz (dropout from college) ?

(and it's one of the best self driving software out there)

Of course you need to study(a lot), but a degree is not required.

Re: Ask HN: Is it a waste of time to teach yourself data science without a degree?

#24

Post by alkonaut »

NumberCruncher wrote: post #9

It depends on how you define "data science". If you are like AWS and say that using logistic regression is machine learning, then yes, you can teach yourself data science. Learn SQL, read a couple of books on logistic regression, use some open data for building a couple of models. There are many companies where you can have a decent job and an easy living with SQL and logistic regression on your tool belt. If you say…

> It depends on how you define "data science".

I think the widely accepted definition is "Statistics, but on a Mac"

Re: Ask HN: Is it a waste of time to teach yourself data science without a degree?

#25

Post by maxxxxx »

wdroz wrote: post #5

You can do a "regular" programming job and seeking business cases at your company where data science could help. After, meet your boss and tell him something like "I can make this process 10-20% faster with a 3 month projects" If he accept, you will have data science real world experience in your CV and it will increase your weight on the CV stack when you apply for data science jobs.

I don't think the goal should necessarily be to get a job that has "data science" in the title. There are plenty of projects where data science could help but not many devs know about the available tools so if you know something about data science you have an edge over other devs.

For example in my company there would be plenty of opportunities for applying machine learning or computer vision. Nobody knows enough to know how to approach these problem so nothing happens. We could use somebody who knows how to move forward.

Re: Ask HN: Is it a waste of time to teach yourself data science without a degree?

#26

Post by cwyers »

qubex wrote: post #2

You seem to assume that the only use for knowledge is garnering employment: this is patently false, as you could easily learn something and apply it for your own pleasure in the non-professional domain. P.S. It's called ’statistics’.

> P.S. It's called ’statistics’.

No, it's not. Read Breiman's "Statistical Modeling: The Two Cultures."

http://www2.math.uu.se/~thulin/mm/breiman.pdf

"Statistics" has largely been concerned with the "data modelling culture" Breiman talks about; a lot of data science is focused on algorithmic modelling, things like neural nets, random forests, and so on. A lot of these techniques have been refined outside of modern statistics because of statistic's focus on data modelling.

This also ignores all of the things that fall outside of the purview of the modelling steps altogether, things like data cleaning, data engineering, and so on. All of those are properly "data science" but often fall outside of what's in a statistics textbook.

If you are going to do data science, you should know statistics. You should know a lot of it. But that is far from the only thing you should know.

As to your larger point... yeah, well, jobs allow people to eat and get health insurance and all that, so it's understandable that OP might want to be able to do those things and not just apply it for his own pleasure. My take on that is that it's hard, both to acquire the skills needed and to signal to employers that you have them. If you're going that route, you need to build a solid portfolio of work. Kaggle might be a good place to start.

Re: Ask HN: Is it a waste of time to teach yourself data science without a degree?

#27

Post by [deleted] »

qubex wrote: post #8
charsifood wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the OP. The comment above responded to the OP by treating his/her question as trivial and followed it with a snarky "P.S. It's called ’statistics’." remark. P.S. @qubex Some people don't have degrees and would actually like to work in data science regardless. The OP is asking about the practicality of that scenario.

I didn't treat it as trivial (exactly) but I oozed what I judge a suitable level of condescension for what is clearly a very venal question that transpires a very narrow horizon. As for the ”it's called ’statistics’” comment: it is, and that subject has a rich history going back centuries — much of the ’modern’ ”data science” is just a less refined, more brutal reinvention of those same techniques.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is it a waste of time to teach yourself data science without a degree?

#28

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

alkonaut wrote: post #24
NumberCruncher wrote: post #9

It depends on how you define "data science". If you are like AWS and say that using logistic regression is machine learning, then yes, you can teach yourself data science. Learn SQL, read a couple of books on logistic regression, use some open data for building a couple of models. There are many companies where you can have a decent job and an easy living with SQL and logistic regression on your tool belt. If you say…

> It depends on how you define "data science". I think the widely accepted definition is "Statistics, but on a Mac"

Shots fired???

I'm new to the startup community, e.g. still in school but excited about startups, is there a general aversion to Windows and why is that?

Re: Ask HN: Is it a waste of time to teach yourself data science without a degree?

#29

Post by dagw »

Non of the data scientists I know actually have a degree in data science. They tend to come from either a physics, math or statistic background and have picked up the data science bits of the side.

Also many jobs that aren't data science jobs per se offer many opportunities to do data science type things. Get a job at a company that works with a type of data you find interesting, and that perhaps doesn't have a dedicated in house data scientist, and every time an interesting data related challenge shows up just go "I have a good idea on how we can approach this" (assuming you actually do). Next thing you know people will coming to you with their data science problems and before you know it you have several years of data science experience on your CV.

Re: Ask HN: Is it a waste of time to teach yourself data science without a degree?

#30

Post by nl »

qubex wrote: post #8
charsifood wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the OP. The comment above responded to the OP by treating his/her question as trivial and followed it with a snarky "P.S. It's called ’statistics’." remark. P.S. @qubex Some people don't have degrees and would actually like to work in data science regardless. The OP is asking about the practicality of that scenario.

I didn't treat it as trivial (exactly) but I oozed what I judge a suitable level of condescension for what is clearly a very venal question that transpires a very narrow horizon. As for the ”it's called ’statistics’” comment: it is, and that subject has a rich history going back centuries — much of the ’modern’ ”data science” is just a less refined, more brutal reinvention of those same techniques.

I run a data science team.

We have statisticians (yes, plural) on my team who have published in Nature, and plenty with other backgrounds.

Even ignoring the data engineering side, there is plenty that statisticians don't do or know which is useful data science.

Take the two attitudes to p-tests, or what a "reasonable number of features" means. You drop the Jeff Dean "consider training models with billions of features" quote on a statistcians desk and see their eyes open.

Statistics is great, but data science is just as much programming as it is stats.

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