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Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

news.berkeley.edu

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Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#51

Post by telchar »

throwawayjava wrote: post #41
tomrod wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Close to 100%, but not 100%.

This is sort of technically true. Modified statement, based on extensive person experience: ~80+% had such an offer in hand, and the remaining 20% either: a) didn't bother applying but would've been shoe-ins, or else b) knew very early (freshman year) they were research-bound and optimized for a non-industry objective function (but could've skated into an industry job of their choice given a shift in undergraduate ca…

You chose a funny example. A lawyer can make captain in the military just by signing on the dotted line, same with a doctor.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#52

Post by telchar »

hkmurakami wrote: post #21
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.

Rebrand marketing into a data science'y name to attract quantitatively minded applicants (already starting to happen in some orgs)

As someone in data science this isn't a trend I particularly like. I suppose to some extent these jobs can be filtered out by requiring a salary that they're not willing to pay for that work.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#53

Post by throwawayjava »

olympus wrote: post #50
throwawayjava wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sort of technically true. Modified statement, based on extensive person experience: ~80+% had such an offer in hand, and the remaining 20% either: a) didn't bother applying but would've been shoe-ins, or else b) knew very early (freshman year) they were research-bound and optimized for a non-industry objective function (but could've skated into an industry job of their choice given a shift in undergraduate ca…

Lawyers can commission directly as captains in the USAF (and probably other branches) as long as they are not too old and can pass the fitness test. I think they also have to have passed a bar exam in one state, but it doesn't matter which one. They can get up to $65k of student loans repaid and don't even have to go through the same basic training as everyone else. So (b) is slightly less trivial than saying a succe…

Yes, I know, that was my point.

> ...So (b) is slightly less trivial

I'd argue not. In both cases, a fully capable and prepared person has to jump through a couple of relatively trivial hoops. And when those hoops aren't possible to jump through it's a weird case. We can split that hair, but it's silly.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#54

Post by dsacco »

graycat wrote: post #36
nextos wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of value in your posts. Mathematizing problems, when successful, brings elegant solutions with well understood properties. Hence, I don't understand the downvotes you are usually getting. I'm a pure CS / logician by training, but I've spent a few years trying to expand my expertise into probability theory and stochastic processes. Lots of your advice resonates with me. My MSc advisor recommended I shoul…

In most academic fields, work that mathematizes the field is regarded as the best. Neveu is elegant beyond belief. I keep my copy close. I was aimed at Neveu by a star student of E. Cinlar, long at Princeton and before that at Northwestern -- long editor in chief of Mathematics of Operations Research . Neveu was a student of M. Loeve at Berkeley. So was the current darling of machine learning, L. Breiman, because of…

Thanks for the recommendation on Neveu, I’m going to check it out. If I recall correctly Chung mentioned it in his book as well.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#55

Post by Someone1234 »

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

I randomly started checking other CompSci courses on that site and they all had a similarly high average grade, in some cases even higher (A instead of a B+).

Which are the hard courses at Berkeley in CompSci using the site you linked?

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#56

Post by booleandilemma »

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.

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

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#57

Post by graycat »

dsacco wrote: post #54
graycat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most academic fields, work that mathematizes the field is regarded as the best. Neveu is elegant beyond belief. I keep my copy close. I was aimed at Neveu by a star student of E. Cinlar, long at Princeton and before that at Northwestern -- long editor in chief of Mathematics of Operations Research . Neveu was a student of M. Loeve at Berkeley. So was the current darling of machine learning, L. Breiman, because of…

Thanks for the recommendation on Neveu, I’m going to check it out. If I recall correctly Chung mentioned it in his book as well.

Yes, K. L. Chung's book is also competitive.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#58

Post by meri_dian »

What exactly is Data Science? It seems like such an overused term and the value of the subject really gets diluted for me when I see charts in Tableau being offered as examples of "data science".

What's the difference between, say, a Master's program in Computer Science where one studies machine learning and a Master's program in Data Science? Am I wrong for thinking the Data Science program weaker?

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#59

Post by devteambravo »

analognoise wrote: post #17
csjr wrote: post #13

Does anyone know how it compares to bootcamps like DataCamp[0] for e.g? [0] https://www.datacamp.com

Boot camps are stupid. Go to community college. It's ridiculously cheap, and the credits are worth something.

What a ludicrous statement. Name a single community college program that touches on even a small portion of something like www.freecodecamp.com

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#60

Post by gnulinux »

I'm a UC Berkeley alum. When I was there this was a course taken by humanity majors to learn some programming so that their Resume looks cooler. majority of STEM majors take CS 61A (SICP) or E7 (Programming in MATLAB). Just noting this as a context, this is not the class intended for CS majors; this : https://cs61a.org/ one is.
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