Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

news.berkeley.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 164 posts

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#91

Post by wwweston »

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 in my statistical understanding that I know are there based on how I felt about my grasp on the related material for even the classes I passed)... and maybe isn't quite as big an investment as a full-fledged master's degree.

Anybody have any suggestions?

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#92

Post by proverbialbunny »

ithilglin909 wrote: post #7
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'm just curious -- where do you think the puck will be? I've had a number of younger acquaintances ask for career advice. Pursuing some kind of data science seems like an obviously smart direction now, but I've wondered if this, as well as traditional CS career paths, may be in danger of becoming over-saturated areas, now that everyone views them as sure paths to a job that pays well.

On the tech side front end or data science both seem like good options.

Companies are need a store front, so front end work will continue for a while, until it is super easy for any joe to make a professional website.

Data Science looks promising too, because it is automating and solving problems that previously could not be done.

However, outside of tech the world still needs skilled blue collar workers. For example, I don't see carpenters being automated away any time soon. I hear some of those jobs pay better than tech work too.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#93

Post by QML »

Treegarden wrote: post #19

why is there no syllabus - as in a list of contents? I want to know what really is behind this buzzword stuff.

It's probably around the same content as this semester's iteration: http://data8.org/sp18/. I would read the online book for more info.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#94

Post by anonymous5133 »

Always boggles my mind with these "free" online courses that still stick to old method of "registering" for the class and then following a regimented schedule.

Seriously, just upload the lecture videos, put the homework online and textbook. Add a message board and you're golden.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#95

Post by newfoundglory »

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…

A graduate certificate? Not sure what you’d want it in, something like this Applied Statistics option? https://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/degrees-and-certificates/app...

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#96

Post by lucasverra »

anonymous5133 wrote: post #94

Always boggles my mind with these "free" online courses that still stick to old method of "registering" for the class and then following a regimented schedule. Seriously, just upload the lecture videos, put the homework online and textbook. Add a message board and you're golden.

Having ~7 moocs and 1 udacity nanodegree under the belt, here is my anecdata :

Before Coursera, i was never able to finish anything on MIT opencourseware. Free flow of information need too much commitment from my end to be digerable.

It was the structure given by

> "registering" for the class and then following a regimented schedule.

that i managed to start and finish. Disclaimer: I discovered Coursera after grad school

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#97

Post by gaius »

eksemplar wrote: post #78
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 disagree with this. Every enterprise company has an analytical department, even more so in the public sector. My municipality has 8 guys working on analytics for instance. They are mostly economics or (I’m not sure what it’s called in English, but it’s a degree in societal administration), but they really ought to be data scientists because everything they do is based on huge sql data sets. We pay private contracto…

My municipality has 8 guys working on analytics for instance.

Do you propose that they should take a MOOC like this one, or that they should be replaced by MOOC graduates?

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#98

Post by apengwin »

Someone1234 wrote: post #55
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?

Compilers (164) and digital system design (152) are the hardest classes. Other classes with high workload are systems (162) and graphics (184)

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#99

Post by Natsu »

mr_toad wrote: post #45
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.

Every job that involves data in any way is being relabeled a data science job. Most of them are just generating dashboards and posters in Excel or Tableau for people who are data illiterate. I know many people with maths/stats/comp-sci backgrounds who end up in these sorts of jobs. “Just add a bunch of green up arrows and red down arrows, your manager will love it” was advice from a co-worker of mine. Sadly, she was…

In an engineering class, when dealing with a problem about factories that produce widgets and consume resources/widgets from other machines, I made a complex Excel spreadsheet that was animated to pass little numbers around that represented the items produced or consumed.

It didn't actually give correct results, I'm not sure it could have worked (I needed to do two updates on the same cycle and never did figure out how), and I documented that it was buggy.

But it looked cool and I got good marks. So my experience pretty much agrees with yours.

Re: Berkeley offers its data science course online for free

#100

Post by q-base »

graycat wrote: post #23

Okay, here's a view of what appears to be part of the course: We have a course (right a school application of stuff taught in school!) with two teachers, that is, two sections of the course, each section with its own teacher and its own students. At the end of the two courses, that is, the two sections, we want to compare the teachers. So we give the same test to all of the students from both courses. Suppose one sec…

I love this. Thanks a lot for taking the time to write it!
Post reply on HN