Berkeley offers its data science course online for free • Hacker News Board

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#111

Post by heedlessly3 » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:31 PM UTC

resolaibohp wrote: post #10

jamestimmins wrote: post #5

I find it curious that there are so many courses for data-science related subjects, which superficially seem to cover the same material, and relatively few courses covering more traditional CS topics such as computer systems, networks, OS. I suppose it has to do with the market, but also feels like colleges are skating to where the puck is, rather than where it will be (or perhaps, where it could be).

I have also found this interesting. What I don't understand is that the amount of data science jobs are no where near the levels that people make it seem. I am not sure where all these people will end up working if they want to be a data scientist. There is not a need to hire huge teams of data scientists like you might for dev roles, it doesn't scale the same way.

every data analyst job is now called a data scientist.

People think being a data scientist is just being a sql monkey

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#112

Post by zitterbewegung » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:33 PM UTC

jamestimmins wrote: post #22

zitterbewegung wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIT open courseware has a bunch of classes related to traditional CS topics. Also just searching universities you can find some. Data Science is the new hip class and it’s just very aggressively marketed. The other one being marketed heavily is intro to coding .

Good to know about OCW. Are there often videos as well as assignments? My issue in the past was that they often didn't have many of the teaching resources. Intro to coding is a fascinating one. From a marketing/business standpoint it makes sense, but 3-4 it was extremely frustrating to see dozens of intro coding courses, but practically nothing for intermediate programmers. Thankfully we're past that point for the mo…

It depends on the class but they have videos and assignments there .

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#113

Post by heedlessly3 » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:40 PM UTC

QML wrote: post #28

jamestimmins wrote: post #5

I find it curious that there are so many courses for data-science related subjects, which superficially seem to cover the same material, and relatively few courses covering more traditional CS topics such as computer systems, networks, OS. I suppose it has to do with the market, but also feels like colleges are skating to where the puck is, rather than where it will be (or perhaps, where it could be).

I think it’s because data science has a more immediate, broader applicability than computer science. Not everybody needs to know how to program a full application; but they should be able to load in a dataset and statistically analyze it. Looking at the type of people taking Data 8 compared to CS61A (the introductory programming course), I would say the former is a fairly diverse crowd (political science majors, econ…

>It is also a possibility that Data Science is an easier topic to learn than Computer Science, and thus more popular.

This might seem so due to mainstream marketing. But that's not true. To be truly good at Data Science, you must know a chunk of Computer Science fundamentals and Statistics

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#114

Post by austenallred » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #91

bartart wrote: post #26

People at Berkeley view this class as kind of a joke. The average grade is insanely high and the topics are covered in much less depth than just the normal intro cs or stats classes. https://www.berkeleytime.com/grades/?course1=7765-all-all

Good to know. I looked at this Berkeley course (along with some private offerings like General Assembly) and got the feeling that they really weren't worth the investment for a guy with a Math degree, a CS minor, and programming experience going back to childhood. But I think I'd like some kind of formal, credentialed program that would build on my existing linear algebra + software skills (and address the weaknesses…

This is exactly what we built at Lambda School - our data science/machine learning program has math (linear algebra, calculus) and CS (python) as pre-requisites, and is designed to train the rest of the way. It can also be free until you get hired in field.

It is a big commitment - 6 months full-time or one year part-time.

https://lambdaschool.com/courses/ds/machine-learning/

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#115

Post by sigi45 » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

jamestimmins wrote: post #5

I find it curious that there are so many courses for data-science related subjects, which superficially seem to cover the same material, and relatively few courses covering more traditional CS topics such as computer systems, networks, OS. I suppose it has to do with the market, but also feels like colleges are skating to where the puck is, rather than where it will be (or perhaps, where it could be).

This is a general issue i have seen as well.

We live in 2018 and there is no open source course for everything. Instead there are probably 10-30k universities who have similar courses and professors who give the same lecture every year.

They get paid often enough by countries to create and do those courses. In germany most of our unversities are paid by all of us germans anyway.

And what do you find online? Always the starter verion like 101 computer science or videos with bad audio or video, no proper exercises, no solution helper etc. Nothing. You have to go to different sites to sometimes pay or sometimes not.

there are no local locations to meet up with people.

There should be a global initiative for global free and open access learning. Sponsored and supported by companies and countries. Build upon a core of a knowledge graph based on topics or 'snippets of knowledge'. Like for example: math -> add -> sub

Something like 'The Map of Mathematics' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmJ-4B-mS-Y)

And when you wanna get the global accepted math 101 level, you have to take specific topics / snippets.

And those snippets can than be filled with different people who are making a lecture for that topic and you can choose whom you like more or who is better in explaining it to you.

What do i do instead? I ask around for the lecture scripts because they are always behind a simple password protected area or have multiple links to different pages of different universietses who offer different courses for free as videos for there students in sometimes/often bad quality and / or bad video players etc.

It sucks and this is stupid.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#116

Post by rmorey » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

sigi45 wrote: post #115

jamestimmins wrote: post #5

I find it curious that there are so many courses for data-science related subjects, which superficially seem to cover the same material, and relatively few courses covering more traditional CS topics such as computer systems, networks, OS. I suppose it has to do with the market, but also feels like colleges are skating to where the puck is, rather than where it will be (or perhaps, where it could be).

This is a general issue i have seen as well. We live in 2018 and there is no open source course for everything. Instead there are probably 10-30k universities who have similar courses and professors who give the same lecture every year. They get paid often enough by countries to create and do those courses. In germany most of our unversities are paid by all of us germans anyway. And what do you find online? Always th…

>There should be a global initiative for global free and open access learning. Sponsored and supported by companies and countries. Build upon a core of a knowledge graph based on topics or 'snippets of knowledge'.

I like this idea and the framing of it a lot

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#117

Post by ghaff » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

swedishfish wrote: post #61

banned1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought biomedical engineering still has a lot of potential to offer?

My friend who majored in biomed kept getting passed over during her job search. Turns out all the biomed companies just wanted to hire mechanical engineers. (She did eventually find a job in her field.) I guess it's analogous to the data science degrees popping up today. Will be interesting to see if it ends up as a fad degree or a legitimate career path.

My impression (as someone who was once very interested in biomedical engineering) was that it was always mostly mechanical engineering plus some bio/chem and teaming up with doctors. I didn't end up going that route but I got an ME from a school where a number of mechanical engineering professors worked with the affiliated hospital on projects.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#118

Post by ghaff » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

Socketopp wrote: post #110

jamestimmins wrote: post #5

I find it curious that there are so many courses for data-science related subjects, which superficially seem to cover the same material, and relatively few courses covering more traditional CS topics such as computer systems, networks, OS. I suppose it has to do with the market, but also feels like colleges are skating to where the puck is, rather than where it will be (or perhaps, where it could be).

All these courses in data science ain't gonna solve science biggest mystery, that is consciousness. Too bad we don't focus on that. /Cognitive scientist

We are starting to see a bit of a pushback although it's hard to discern amongst all the hype. There's some recognition that deep learning is just one technique that happened to pop (to use Rodney Brooks' term) for a variety of reasons but that we haven't made huge progress in cognitive science and other fields.

Deep learning is the current shiny toy but I suspect we'll find it isn't actually sufficient for a lot of things we want to do and we'll run into a wall a lot of people aren't expecting.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#119

Post by throwawayjava » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #73

throwawayjava wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every graduate that doesn't find a high paying job in the field is an excellent candidate for the next level of education. 1. You really think Berkeley's top-ranked PhD program is recruiting people who couldn't find jobs? No. Not only can 100% of successful top-tier PhD applicants find jobs, 100% of them are strong candidates for the top echelon on entry-level jobs. If you disagree, go look up the people in Berkele…

You really think Berkeley's top-ranked PhD program is recruiting people who couldn't find jobs? It is well known that PhD programmes churn out far more PhDs than can reasonably be employed in their field. I mean, including friends and former colleagues I probably know maybe 300 people with PhDs. Of those I can count on my fingers those actually doing research in academia, probably one hand those on tenure track. But…

See point 3. At least in CS, at least for the moment, there's insane demand for CS educators. Maybe not research track at top 20 R1, but definitely requires a PhD.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#120

Post by cossatot » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 3:23 PM UTC

booleandilemma wrote: post #56

resolaibohp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have also found this interesting. What I don't understand is that the amount of data science jobs are no where near the levels that people make it seem. I am not sure where all these people will end up working if they want to be a data scientist. There is not a need to hire huge teams of data scientists like you might for dev roles, it doesn't scale the same way.

I don’t think the colleges care where their students end up when they’re done with them.

They care to the extent that the alumni are willing and able to make fat donations.