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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?

#51

Post by rdudek »

itamarst wrote: post #21

(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…

This is great, however, the biggest roadblock might be the automated HR application scanning. As a victim of this, I'm back in school to finish my degree that I started 17 years ago.

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

#52

Post by brownesauce »

I would suggest joining an early stage start up and getting involved with anything remotely to do with data science at every opportunity. I joined a small company as an analyst with no programming experience and minimal statistical knowledge. I was a graduate but not in a relevant subject and just taught myself the relevant skills on the side. It was a lot of work but not a waste of time. The programming side of the job can be learnt fairly quickly but the maths and stats side takes longer. I don't think you can really succeed in data science without both. Saying that, you certainly don't have to have a degree to be able to use that knowledge. I did just do a statistics degree though, and it has made the job a lot more pleasurable.

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

#53

Post by rdeboo »

Helmet wrote: post #46
quadrature wrote: post #39

A good programmer with even just a high level overview of ML and Stats concepts would be an incredibly valuable asset to a data science team. Most ML people are academics who tend to not have good software engineering skills, finding people who master both domains is really hard. Also to add to that most of the work in ML is feature engineering, data cleaning, testing and building pipelines which all require a good s…

Really? I don't know if I'm good, but I think I'm at least a "decent" programmer and I have a solid grasp of ML and Stats concepts and I've had absolutely no luck getting interviews, much less call backs for data science jobs.

I'd try to apply as Data Engineer, you'll be close to the data science work and can more easily pivot into there if you want.

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

#54

Post by computerex »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #49
computerex wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While this sounds rational, I don't think that's how it works in most cases. Those who do the hiring usually prefer covering themselves by hiring someone with a degree rather than having to explain how they hired you because you made millions to someone else in the past. Definitely not my experience. I can count on one hand the number of employers who didn't want to proceed because of a lack of degree.

For data science specifically? Remember, this question isn't about general CS.

The original comment sounded like general advice not specific to data science. I was thinking about it in the context of general CS/programming. But even in data science specifically, in my experience the focus in hiring is towards actual skills and less towards credentials/qualifications. I recently (few weeks ago) interviewed with a data science company for a data science role as someone with a software engineering background. It was a challenging interview but the subject of my degree never even came up and I got the job.

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

#55

Post by itamarst »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #49
computerex wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While this sounds rational, I don't think that's how it works in most cases. Those who do the hiring usually prefer covering themselves by hiring someone with a degree rather than having to explain how they hired you because you made millions to someone else in the past. Definitely not my experience. I can count on one hand the number of employers who didn't want to proceed because of a lack of degree.

For data science specifically? Remember, this question isn't about general CS.

My impression is there is huge demand for data scientists (e.g. friend who is trying to hire someone and can't find anyone). Open Data Science Conference is running right now in Boston, 3600 attendees... it seems likely that if you can demonstrate skill, someone somewhere will hire you.

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

#56

Post by quadrature »

Helmet wrote: post #46
quadrature wrote: post #39

A good programmer with even just a high level overview of ML and Stats concepts would be an incredibly valuable asset to a data science team. Most ML people are academics who tend to not have good software engineering skills, finding people who master both domains is really hard. Also to add to that most of the work in ML is feature engineering, data cleaning, testing and building pipelines which all require a good s…

Really? I don't know if I'm good, but I think I'm at least a "decent" programmer and I have a solid grasp of ML and Stats concepts and I've had absolutely no luck getting interviews, much less call backs for data science jobs.

If only you were willing to work in Canada :P.

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

#57

Post by monster_group »

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…

"If you say that data science starts with automating stock trading or building the intelligence of self driving cars, than no, you can not teach yourself data science. You will need at least one degree. Or more.".

Isn't it a little presumptive telling others they can't teach themselves something? Or do you mean to imply that they can't get a job without a degree? Those are different things.

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

#58

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

eyko wrote: post #38
SimbaOnSteroids wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Maybe because it's not unix-like. But I know many colleagues using Windows so I don't think there's an issue with that.

I saw one guy on Google Entrepreneur that eliminated potential hires based on if they used Windows. He was in the web development space so that could have been part of it but still it was really weird.

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

#59

Post by StavrosK »

soVeryTired wrote: post #34
StavrosK wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no, you can not teach yourself data science. You will need at least one degree. Or more. Why not? What is it that prevents anyone from learning anything without getting a degree? I disagree with your statement, I think it might be harder, but I don't think anyone "cannot teach themselves X".

It's quite possible that you can teach yourself a lot of the relevant background. If you read David Barber's book cover to cover and do all the problems, that's a machine learning masters' course covered. But the problem is that you're competing against job applicants who already have a degree in machine learning. So it will often be the case that you're lucky to make it past an initial HR screen. If they want to int…

Hah, I couldn't read that book when I was taking his class, it's not likely I'll start now.

However, to your point, "you can't teach yourself" and "you can't get a job just by reading a book" aren't the same thing. I'm not so sure you can't get a job by teaching yourself machine learning and making your own self-driving toy car or some other fun project, though.

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

#60

Post by tmaly »

I think if you really want to get into the field, self study can be great. Yes you could learn some of the frameworks and libraries out there, but I think you will miss the bigger picture if you do not grasp the fundamentals.

Even brushing up on probability and linear algebra has benefits. Your learning a skill set that you can use in other areas of life. Heck, if you have kids or will have kids someday, you will have the knowledge to teach them valuable skills.

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