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> Can someone explain how you can train Data Scientists in 6 months? Doesn't it ring alarm bells that society attempts to herd 100% of students through 4 year

by breck 6y ago

> Can someone explain how you can train Data Scientists in 6 months? Doesn't it ring alarm bells that society attempts to herd 100% of students through 4 year programs? That sounds far from optimal, no? It seems highly likely to me that if you get someone who excels on the steep parts of learning curves, 6 months studying the right things would be just as effective (if not more) than 4 years doing mostly busy work. > What jobs do these grads walk into? I think they walk into entry level jobs. I know I much prefer working with people that love to live on steep learning curve slopes over those who prefer to go at the pace of the system. > remember what a dot product or a t-test is from week 1? I have been in data science for many years and most of the terms I was taught college (like t test) never come up. Maybe once or twice a year I have to spend 60 seconds to refresh on dot product algo.

SantalBlush 6y ago
>Doesn't it ring alarm bells that society attempts to herd 100% of students through 4 year programs? That sounds far from optimal, no? Society doesn't attempt to herd anywhere near 100% of students through 4-year programs; you just made that up.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cbozeman 6y ago
  American society does. I saw countless people at my cow college who were utterly unqualified to be there, but because "It's free money!" and Mommy and Daddy expect them to go, they went. For entirely too many of the young women, it was Four Year Husband Selection Tryouts, and for too many of the young men, it was Random Sexual Encounter Weekend. A couple of folks were there because we had the most powerful supercomputer in American academia, or for our excellent agricultural and engineering programs, but they were the exception rather than the norm. Going back at age 28 after a six year stint in the Navy gave me a very different perspective though, so I may not be the best example.
  - NationalPark 6y ago
    Here are the actual stats: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cpa.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cpa.asp About 45% of high school graduates enroll immediately in a 4 year program.
    - least 6y ago
      Statistics of enrollment percentage doesn’t really describe the culture surrounding college in the United States, though. Plenty of people don’t end up going to college but that certainly hasn’t stopped it being considered a panacea for employability in this country. This is still being pushed by politicians. It’s still what pretty much every parent hopes for their children as well. On this website I’ve seen people derisively describe people as not college educated.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - cbozeman 6y ago
        > On this website I’ve seen people derisively describe people as not college educated. This is unfortunate, because I've met quite a few very smart people who never went to college, or who started but had life circumstances that pulled them away before they were able to complete a degree. College is not a panacea and the sad but honest truth is that most jobs do not require a college degree. Most of the jobs in America can easily be done with on-the-job training; we've just seen companies shift to a model where they want to offload those costs to the American worker by letting them spend $50,000 to $250,000 and four years of their lives "proving" they can get an education that many of them don't really need, and don't really want in the first place. We also allowed well-meaning people to pass laws preventing companies from conducting IQ tests and thereby sorting people as was done many years ago. I know this is true because years ago I used to eat lunch with the Director of Human Talent Acquisition at my company almost every day, and we would discuss this. He was a very engaging gentleman in his mid-70s with an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of current and past HR topics, philosophies, and controversies. He had worked for a well-known Fortune 50 company for almost 35 years before "retiring" to my company, a mere Fortune 1000 player. He can recall using IQ tests to sort applicants into positions for which we now demand bachelor's degrees, or in some cases, even master's degrees. A bit sad, if you ask me. Our culture should be progressing, not regressing...
StandardFuture 6y ago
> Doesn't it ring alarm bells It should but it is likely that the alarm will not be raised enough. We are ALL taught from grade 1 to "prepare for college, so it can turn us into adults" as a life philosophy. It probably does not help that every single one of our teachers was forced through that system in order to be granted the "privilege" of teaching us.
jolux 6y ago
>It seems highly likely to me that if you get someone who excels on the steep parts of learning curves, 6 months studying the right things would be just as effective (if not more) than 4 years doing mostly busy work. I don't know what you were doing in college but anyone who can learn four years of material in six months probably doesn't need Lambda School in the first place.
- dkarras 6y ago
  If you cut out the commute, obsession with socializing, 1x speed inefficient lectures, impersonal general purpose homework, breadth first class catalog that try to get you well rounded - the necessary material for most professionals is not four years worth. "I never use what we learned at school, professional life is very different" is a very old meme. Where I live, colleges prepare you to be able to choose to be many things - continue academia, or be part of the workforce under diverging titles. They assume you don't know what you want to be yet - and it is mostly true. But if you are at a point in life where you know what you want to be, you can skip most of it (or even do it live when needed). The "keep your options open" attitude of colleges have a lot of overhead. What most people need from a 4 year college can be easily condensed into a year. It WON'T be 4 years worth of material. But if you know what you want (not keeping your options open) you don't need most of it.
  - jolux 6y ago
    I mean, I’ll be the last person to say you need four years of college to be an effective programmer, but that’s not really what I take issue with. I dropped out of my BS after freshman year and got my first job in the industry instead at 20. The rest of school isn’t busy work, I just prefer teaching myself, as I had been already for eleven years.
  - watwut 6y ago
    You don't actually have to socialize that much in college. And most students don't have that long commute. I don't think you should need college degree to code. But I don't think I could learn what I learned there in 6 months either.
musicale 6y ago
> 4 years doing mostly busy work I expect that is not typically the case at MIT.

by breck 6y ago

SantalBlush 6y ago

>Doesn't it ring alarm bells that society attempts to herd 100% of students through 4 year programs? That sounds far from optimal, no? Society doesn't attempt to herd anywhere near 100% of students through 4-year programs; you just made that up.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cbozeman 6y ago
American society does. I saw countless people at my cow college who were utterly unqualified to be there, but because "It's free money!" and Mommy and Daddy expect them to go, they went. For entirely too many of the young women, it was Four Year Husband Selection Tryouts, and for too many of the young men, it was Random Sexual Encounter Weekend. A couple of folks were there because we had the most powerful supercomputer in American academia, or for our excellent agricultural and engineering programs, but they were the exception rather than the norm. Going back at age 28 after a six year stint in the Navy gave me a very different perspective though, so I may not be the best example.
- NationalPark 6y ago
  Here are the actual stats: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cpa.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cpa.asp About 45% of high school graduates enroll immediately in a 4 year program.
  - least 6y ago
    Statistics of enrollment percentage doesn’t really describe the culture surrounding college in the United States, though. Plenty of people don’t end up going to college but that certainly hasn’t stopped it being considered a panacea for employability in this country. This is still being pushed by politicians. It’s still what pretty much every parent hopes for their children as well. On this website I’ve seen people derisively describe people as not college educated.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - cbozeman 6y ago
      > On this website I’ve seen people derisively describe people as not college educated. This is unfortunate, because I've met quite a few very smart people who never went to college, or who started but had life circumstances that pulled them away before they were able to complete a degree. College is not a panacea and the sad but honest truth is that most jobs do not require a college degree. Most of the jobs in America can easily be done with on-the-job training; we've just seen companies shift to a model where they want to offload those costs to the American worker by letting them spend $50,000 to $250,000 and four years of their lives "proving" they can get an education that many of them don't really need, and don't really want in the first place. We also allowed well-meaning people to pass laws preventing companies from conducting IQ tests and thereby sorting people as was done many years ago. I know this is true because years ago I used to eat lunch with the Director of Human Talent Acquisition at my company almost every day, and we would discuss this. He was a very engaging gentleman in his mid-70s with an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of current and past HR topics, philosophies, and controversies. He had worked for a well-known Fortune 50 company for almost 35 years before "retiring" to my company, a mere Fortune 1000 player. He can recall using IQ tests to sort applicants into positions for which we now demand bachelor's degrees, or in some cases, even master's degrees. A bit sad, if you ask me. Our culture should be progressing, not regressing...

StandardFuture 6y ago

> Doesn't it ring alarm bells It should but it is likely that the alarm will not be raised enough. We are ALL taught from grade 1 to "prepare for college, so it can turn us into adults" as a life philosophy. It probably does not help that every single one of our teachers was forced through that system in order to be granted the "privilege" of teaching us.

jolux 6y ago

>It seems highly likely to me that if you get someone who excels on the steep parts of learning curves, 6 months studying the right things would be just as effective (if not more) than 4 years doing mostly busy work. I don't know what you were doing in college but anyone who can learn four years of material in six months probably doesn't need Lambda School in the first place.

dkarras 6y ago
If you cut out the commute, obsession with socializing, 1x speed inefficient lectures, impersonal general purpose homework, breadth first class catalog that try to get you well rounded - the necessary material for most professionals is not four years worth. "I never use what we learned at school, professional life is very different" is a very old meme. Where I live, colleges prepare you to be able to choose to be many things - continue academia, or be part of the workforce under diverging titles. They assume you don't know what you want to be yet - and it is mostly true. But if you are at a point in life where you know what you want to be, you can skip most of it (or even do it live when needed). The "keep your options open" attitude of colleges have a lot of overhead. What most people need from a 4 year college can be easily condensed into a year. It WON'T be 4 years worth of material. But if you know what you want (not keeping your options open) you don't need most of it.
- jolux 6y ago
  I mean, I’ll be the last person to say you need four years of college to be an effective programmer, but that’s not really what I take issue with. I dropped out of my BS after freshman year and got my first job in the industry instead at 20. The rest of school isn’t busy work, I just prefer teaching myself, as I had been already for eleven years.
- watwut 6y ago
  You don't actually have to socialize that much in college. And most students don't have that long commute. I don't think you should need college degree to code. But I don't think I could learn what I learned there in 6 months either.

musicale 6y ago

> 4 years doing mostly busy work I expect that is not typically the case at MIT.