I think the author of this post is unintentionally misleading. Becoming a data scientist is not a passive activity that can be taught solely through coursework

I think the author of this post is unintentionally misleading. Becoming a data scientist is not a passive activity that can be taught solely through coursework, the only time the author mentions real-world applications is in the point mentioning competitions. Every data scientist that's worth anything has either done a PhD or would be capable of doing a PhD, the distinguishing characteristics between PhD's and standard coursework is the incremental effort navigating uncertainty. In the end, Data Science entails a great deal of uncertainty that makes most people uncomfortable.