I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion

#111

Post by bigred100 » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 6:22 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #101

bigred100 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if humanities knowledge will become a status symbol, as being in great shape has become

Hasn't it already? It certainly is in Western Europe, a way to distinguish yourself from the filthy masses that need to do physical labor and the slightly smarter but soulless engineers and lawyers and what have you.

In USA (among the social group I grew up around), it seems like it’s mocked unless you’re also wealthy, in my opinion (eg the Starbucks barista who knows Latin). Even with eg Zuckerberg I think it’s mostly unknown that he has some knowledge of these things, or among many considered an eccentricity. Among very high level societal elites or extremely educated people perhaps it’s viewed differently (I would know nothing about this)

Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion

#112

Post by majormajor » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #102

lame88 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is either a low effort bait post or exactly the kind of bullshit tech-worship I've come to despise. There's more to life and learning than STEM and whatever rides the current economic wave.

I disagree. Without significant advances in STEM the last 200 years would be pretty much identical to the 200 years before them, and another 200 before them, etc.

Did those advances come about because everyone grew up being told to study STEM so they could crunch numbers for marketing analytics all day?

Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion

#113

Post by tomjakubowski » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

geebee wrote: post #105

notbob wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That QZ article gets a lot wrong. In particular: > if the tech bubble bursts, computer science may even be riskier than a humanities degree, which gives graduates a broader set of knowledge. How do humanities degrees provide "broader knowledge" than CS degrees? Different, sure, but broader? Good CS degrees are not coding bootcamps. CS students take a lot of mathematics and logic-heavy courses and can easily pivot fro…

That's a very important observation. It's been almost 20 years since I was an undergraduate, but at the time (I went to UCSD), general college requirements were overwhelmingly tilted toward the humanities. Specific requirements varied on which particular college you attended, but often required a 2 lower division survey of world history and cultures, 2 years of a foreign language, and 1-2 courses in performing arts.…

Gen-ed humanities courses taught to giant lecture halls aren't quite the same as the much smaller courses the majors take. You are extremely likely to be put on the spot and made to defend a subjective position you've taken. They're tough and require you have tons of knowledge at hand to succeed in them. In math, and to some extent engineering or science, you can often reason your way through if you get stuck, or at worse there are often simple procedures you can rote memorize.

I do agree that non-STEM degrees should have stronger math requirements. But K-12 math education in the US is such a disaster that the universities wouldn't stand a chance if they wanted to do it.

Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion

#114

Post by kosei » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 6:28 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #15

kosei wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? $125k doesn't seem low to me based on experience. Also, just looked on Payscale and it says Senior Data Analyst (with 6 years experience) salary range was $63-113k.

Data Analyst is not the same thing as a Data Scientist.

True. The comment I responded to specifically referred to Senior Data Analyst.

Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion

#115

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

askafriend wrote: post #83

lostcolony wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you didn't actually read/understand his comment. He stated they were worth $0, implying that it doesn't matter how many they give; they're still worth $0. It was cheekily pointing out how worthless stock options in a pre-IPO startup are.

Why would stock options be worthless just because a company is pre-IPO?

I assume it is a joke about how almost all startup stock options end up being worthless.

Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion

#116

Post by mythrwy » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 6:36 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #68

zeppelin101 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but should people take on substantial debt to get a 'meaningful' degree that will not provide a real ROI? Studying fluffy majors is only logical for 1%ers, basically, because you don't really have to work for a living and you can get set up with some prestigious non-profit through connections. For everyone else, they should probably get cultured on their own, without paying tens of thousands of dollars.

Money is not the only thing in the world, or even the most important. It’s a means to an end.

Until you don't have any. Then it is.

Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion

#117

Post by nathanlied » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 6:36 PM UTC

geebee wrote: post #105

notbob wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That QZ article gets a lot wrong. In particular: > if the tech bubble bursts, computer science may even be riskier than a humanities degree, which gives graduates a broader set of knowledge. How do humanities degrees provide "broader knowledge" than CS degrees? Different, sure, but broader? Good CS degrees are not coding bootcamps. CS students take a lot of mathematics and logic-heavy courses and can easily pivot fro…

That's a very important observation. It's been almost 20 years since I was an undergraduate, but at the time (I went to UCSD), general college requirements were overwhelmingly tilted toward the humanities. Specific requirements varied on which particular college you attended, but often required a 2 lower division survey of world history and cultures, 2 years of a foreign language, and 1-2 courses in performing arts.…

I have one more anecdata point to add in your favour, and mine's more recent (past 5 years), as well as in a different continent (Europe).

I'm a CS/Engineering grad that had some of those, and my colleagues in other STEM degrees had requirements that weren't dissimilar from what you describe. We were required to take classes in philosophy (with emphasis on ethics), history, as well as required to take some electives that could be in all sorts of areas, some in other scientific areas, others in arts, theatre, music. Effectively, it was required of us to at least be cognizant of the goings-on in other fields, even if just the conversational basics.

As for colleagues of mine in humanities degrees, most of them didn't see a single STEM class, and if they did, they were very superficial one-semester courses on Excel spreadsheeting, LaTeX, or very basic physics/probability mathematics, which were effectively a rehashing of high school, but with easier exams.

I echo your sentiment, maybe at some point in the distant past, STEM degrees were isolated in their own bubble and only had very theoretical classes, but I don't know anyone who experienced that, and that's most certainly not been a reality for the past couple of decades.

Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion

#118

Post by mythrwy » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 6:38 PM UTC

motogpjimbo wrote: post #78

BowBun wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science gives us answers. Culture gives us meaning.

Is that what the arts and humanities graduates serving my coffee in Starbucks are generating - culture? Don't conflate culture with those who study it. The vast majority of non-STEM graduates generate no activity of either cultural or economic significance. All such degree programmes could be dropped tomorrow with no detriment to society.

And possibly even a net benefit to society as many of these degree programs have become little more than people believing they are highly educated because they have been trained to hold certain cultural and political opinions.

Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion

#119

Post by rm999 » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #2

Link to original post: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/six-figure-paycheck-data-sc... (Edit: URL fixed) The real question is that $125k as a Senior Data Analyst in NYC seems low. > I have this creative side, which comes in handy when thinking through challenging problems, but there is only so much creativity that I can use when in data analysis. This I disagree with; in data analysis/science, there's more than way t…

>in data analysis/science, there's more than way to highlight/analyze a problem, and more than one way to solve it. In my experience, the best solutions are often the craziest.

I strongly disagree. I have hired, mentored, and/or managed 20+ data scientists and analysts over my career; in my experience the ones who come up with "crazy"/creative solutions are often the least effective in the long run. This is especially true on the product analytics side, where there are 5 ways to shoot yourself in the foot in non-obvious and subtle ways. The best analysts I've worked with follow fairly regimented best practices around the way they analyze problems and present solutions. By its very nature, non-standard solutions are more error-prone and harder to explain, which breaks institutional trust in the analyst.

That said, there is plenty of room for analysts to grow into more creative fields like machine learning or product management, but I don't think the person being interviewed falls in one of these categories.

Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion

#120

Post by notbob » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #113

geebee wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very important observation. It's been almost 20 years since I was an undergraduate, but at the time (I went to UCSD), general college requirements were overwhelmingly tilted toward the humanities. Specific requirements varied on which particular college you attended, but often required a 2 lower division survey of world history and cultures, 2 years of a foreign language, and 1-2 courses in performing arts.…

Gen-ed humanities courses taught to giant lecture halls aren't quite the same as the much smaller courses the majors take. You are extremely likely to be put on the spot and made to defend a subjective position you've taken. They're tough and require you have tons of knowledge at hand to succeed in them. In math, and to some extent engineering or science, you can often reason your way through if you get stuck, or at…

> Gen-ed humanities courses taught to giant lecture halls aren't quite the same as the much smaller courses the majors take

This depends on the type of institution. Liberal arts and most honors colleges at large universities have small class sizes with high-quality instruction for their gen-ed humanities.

> You are extremely likely to be put on the spot and made to defend a subjective position you've taken.

This is also true in (good) mathematics and computer science programs, where you'll need to learn how to communicate well to technical audiences and defend all manner of subjective positions.

Also, something similar is true for the transferability of humanities skills! The writing skills you develop in humanities courses do not directly transfer to technical writing. Learning to write well for any audience will teach you a lot about good writing, but your random English major will probably be completely useless when it comes to writing proofs, design/requirements documents, technical documentation, or especially useful comments in their code. And if I had a dollar for ever business person with a humanities background who made an ass out of themselves in a technical meeting because they have no idea how to communicate with a technical audience about a technical subject... ;-)

> In math, and to some extent engineering or science, you can often reason your way through if you get stuck, or else there are simple procedures you can rote memorize.

I disagree. Your observation about lower vs. upper division courses is as true for STEM as it is for humanities courses. There's a lot of subjectivity/taste involved in upper-division courses, especially any proof-based or project-based course!

> But K-12 math education in the US is such a disaster that the universities wouldn't stand a chance if they wanted to do it.

That's a big problem. It's also a chicken-and-egg problem. Our elementary and middle school teachers are often innumerate, which makes it hard to prepare students for HS (where the quality is often still bad despite subject-area qualifications), which in turn creates problems for gen ed STEM at universities.