6 ms·

While this program seems interesting, valuable, and a step in the right direction, the minute I read the $60,000 price tag I nearly choked on my gum and quickly

by pvnick 13y ago

While this program seems interesting, valuable, and a step in the right direction, the minute I read the $60,000 price tag I nearly choked on my gum and quickly pressed the back button. Coursera classes for me at least in the near future, hopefully within the next few years these degree programs will scale a little better and costs will plummet.

bsg75 13y ago
"Professional" degrees seem to be the new thing in Uni-marketing. The assumption appears to be it would be corporate sponsored, thus "cost does not matter". They may need better data science behind their marketing.
- frozenport 13y ago
  Perhaps if I am the CEO of some wealthy company, claiming I got a masters from Berkeley in a hip field might be worth 60,000.
  - stfu 13y ago
    Then you would most likely try emphasizing your managerial side with a more business type degree. They would need to slap at least some "data driven leadership" label on it. The name (and mode of delivery) makes it sound like a fairly poor choice for rubbing shoulders with other c-level types - something that is certainly a main decision point for executive masters.
- fixxer 13y ago
  I think these online technical degrees are just the next iteration beyond those one-year MS/MEng degrees that started popping up around 2000. This was back when "financial engineering" was the buzzword... that worked out well, didn't it? I'm sure some firms will really like these degrees, but if you're a company (like Google, for example) insisting on a specialized degree, why not aim for PhD level? The income differential is marginal. In Chicago, PhD quants for funds generally start out around $140-150k. I'd argue those ppl are going to be more productive researchers/data scientists than what can be produced by an online program, due largely to value of a research oriented degree versus a skills oriented degree like this one. Even if there is a project component, it isn't the same as writing a thesis. I did an M.Eng way back, trust me: it just isn't the same as banging your head against a research topic for a couple years. Also, for what it is worth, I found the target audience for one-year financial engineering degrees (Goldman Sach, etc) didn't respect the degrees as much as PhDs & MS w/thesis. They generally regarded it as a 5th year of university. Criticism aside, I'm sure this is a great skill builder and ML is fun thing to learn. Not for $60k, though. I like how they're still marketing that McK data science report. "Hadoop everything"
  - bernardom 13y ago
    I agree with regarding an M.Eng as a 5th year of University, though it's a year of actual major-related courses rather than Engineering core classes. That's in fact how I decided to do one: my professor pointed out that it was not one year on top of four, but one on top of one. I got to take another year of electives that were applicable to my career, rather than the core classes (chemistry, etc) that I was required to do during especially the first two years. I do disagree with this snark, though: > This was back when "financial engineering" was the buzzword... that worked out well, didn't it? My M.Eng (Cornell ORIE) was not in FE, though my department offered it. Their (admittedly biased) response to this line of thinking: if we had more financial engineers, we would have had people who actually understand the instruments that were being traded. No doubt the people who created exotic Mortgage-Backed Securities were FE types... if only Moody's and S&P employed some as well, perhaps they wouldn't have been rated AAA. Then again, I'm assuming incompetence rather than malice; the ratings agencies did have incentives to lie.
    - fixxer 13y ago
      Cornell? What year? EDIT: I did mine at CU back in 2003 in applied, not FE. I had many friends in FE, most all went into credit. I worked in trading for six years before quitting for a PhD. I do not place any value on an FE degree; looking back at the curriculum they offered, it is obvious that they were thinking the wrong way (the credit models they were teaching were complete shit and they had no concept of micro-structure; ironic given Maureen O'Hara teaches at the Johnson School). EDIT2: The non-FE profs were and still are very awesome and remain good friends. Did you have Henderson?
      - bernardom 13y ago
        B.S.'08, M.Eng '09 Henderson is one of my favorites; I just went back for my 5-year and he was just so wonderful to talk to. The FE curriculum never really interested me; I took OR methods in FE as an undergrad and the professor (a surfer-dude postdoc from UCLA, Will Anderson) convinced me that the efficient market hypothesis was mostly right. After that, FE seemed a little... well, in the words of my classmate Ryan, "like looking at the surface of the waves to see if there are whales humping."
- narenl 13y ago
  IMO This is not targeted towards individuals applying on their own. I went to a walkabout of a similar online education company's office and asked them about the high cost for an online degree. The answer I received was 1. there is demand for this and 2. Most of the demand comes from people in the military serving in remote locations or people working inside other large organizations which foot the cost. and 3. They provide online infrastructure to courses of schools like UC-B, UNC etc and the colleges set the price so as not to dilute their "brand" because the online degree does not mention the fact that the degree was obtained online (this could have changed). All in all, my initial shock was a bit tempered after hearing the realities involving all 3 parties : the school, the student and the online enabler.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Narenl's comment is invisible due to a hellban. I don't agree with the comment, but it bears scrutiny. narenl 5 hours ago | link [dead] IMO This is not targeted towards individuals applying on their own. I went to a walkabout of a similar online education company's office and asked them about the high cost for an online degree. The answer I received was 1. there is demand for this and 2. Most of the demand comes from people in the military serving in remote locations or people working inside other large organizations which foot the cost. and 3. They provide online infrastructure to courses of schools like UC-B, UNC etc and the colleges set the price so as not to dilute their "brand" because the online degree does not mention the fact that the degree was obtained online (this could have changed). All in all, my initial shock was a bit tempered after hearing the realities involving all 3 parties : the school, the student and the online enabler.
af3 13y ago
60k - hehehe, good luck. People prolly will tell: "It's Berkeley, dude!".
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
shamino 13y ago
I was just going to write this exact comment. I am a data scientist, and I do not think the $60,000 price tag is worth it. I might do it for $2,000 or $3,000, but that's already being a little generous. The $60,000 price tag must come with a guarantee that you'll be making the proposed $110,000 - $130,000 salary range for at least 5 years. Otherwise, wow. The best way to learn these things is to just dive right in. If one need's human interaction, the community is easily within reach (at a much lower cost). Maybe one could argue that the "networking" is worth the price tag. Still, I get these "data meetup" emails about 5 times a day, which I could easily go to for networking.
geebee 13y ago
It sounds like a great degree program, and I'm encouraged to see it go on-line, but the $60K price tag seems over the top to me. Didn't Georgia Tech just announce an online MS for $7,000? I'm just not sure this makes sense. While tuition has gone way up at Berkeley, most science and engineering degrees are considered academic, rather than professional degrees, so the fees are considerably lower. http://registrar.berkeley.edu/Default.aspx?PageID=feesched.html http://registrar.berkeley.edu/Default.aspx?PageID=feesched.h... So yeah, law or business school tuition+fees (professional program) are between $50-$60 a year, but academic programs (which includes engineering) is less than half that. A lot of this comes down to whether data science will really be a "professional" degree with high earnings. Truth is, it might, I'm not ruling it out. I got an MS in Industrial Engineering from Berkeley after a math degree, hoping I could get something practical. I had some good experiences, but I also spent what was to me a depressing amount doing proofs about convex sets and stochastic processes. I probably shouldn't complain, that's what an academic degree program is. Maybe something like a professional program would have been much better for me. Another question is whether holding this degree is valuable independent of what you learn. I know that may sound silly, but it makes a difference. Suppose you were allowed to study law courses on coursera. How much would it be worth it to get to say your degree was officially from Harvard and now qualify for the bar, even if all you did was quietly watch the videos and do the homework? More than $60k, I'd say. Could the same be said for data science? You've watched the identical videos and done the homework... how much of a premium would it be worth to say you got an MS degree online from Berkeley? It would be worth something sure, but not as much as the law scenario. There's no "data science bar" that can prevent you from practicing, and there are so many different acceptable degree paths to becoming a data scientist. And while some may reasonably dispute this, I have found high tech to be more concerned with what you know than where you learned it. All in all... sounds like a great degree, but 60K definitely gives me pause.
- mililani 13y ago
  Yeah, they did; however, the Udacity program doesn't begin to accept new outside students until next year, and I think the program is closer to $8000. Anyways, it's such a steal, and I think the MS in comp sci is more flexible than a niche degree like data science. You could teach comp sci at a 2 year college, for example; whereas, a data science masters will just get you a job in the industry.

by pvnick 13y ago

bsg75 13y ago

"Professional" degrees seem to be the new thing in Uni-marketing. The assumption appears to be it would be corporate sponsored, thus "cost does not matter". They may need better data science behind their marketing.

frozenport 13y ago
Perhaps if I am the CEO of some wealthy company, claiming I got a masters from Berkeley in a hip field might be worth 60,000.
- stfu 13y ago
  Then you would most likely try emphasizing your managerial side with a more business type degree. They would need to slap at least some "data driven leadership" label on it. The name (and mode of delivery) makes it sound like a fairly poor choice for rubbing shoulders with other c-level types - something that is certainly a main decision point for executive masters.
fixxer 13y ago
I think these online technical degrees are just the next iteration beyond those one-year MS/MEng degrees that started popping up around 2000. This was back when "financial engineering" was the buzzword... that worked out well, didn't it? I'm sure some firms will really like these degrees, but if you're a company (like Google, for example) insisting on a specialized degree, why not aim for PhD level? The income differential is marginal. In Chicago, PhD quants for funds generally start out around $140-150k. I'd argue those ppl are going to be more productive researchers/data scientists than what can be produced by an online program, due largely to value of a research oriented degree versus a skills oriented degree like this one. Even if there is a project component, it isn't the same as writing a thesis. I did an M.Eng way back, trust me: it just isn't the same as banging your head against a research topic for a couple years. Also, for what it is worth, I found the target audience for one-year financial engineering degrees (Goldman Sach, etc) didn't respect the degrees as much as PhDs & MS w/thesis. They generally regarded it as a 5th year of university. Criticism aside, I'm sure this is a great skill builder and ML is fun thing to learn. Not for $60k, though. I like how they're still marketing that McK data science report. "Hadoop everything"
- bernardom 13y ago
  I agree with regarding an M.Eng as a 5th year of University, though it's a year of actual major-related courses rather than Engineering core classes. That's in fact how I decided to do one: my professor pointed out that it was not one year on top of four, but one on top of one. I got to take another year of electives that were applicable to my career, rather than the core classes (chemistry, etc) that I was required to do during especially the first two years. I do disagree with this snark, though: > This was back when "financial engineering" was the buzzword... that worked out well, didn't it? My M.Eng (Cornell ORIE) was not in FE, though my department offered it. Their (admittedly biased) response to this line of thinking: if we had more financial engineers, we would have had people who actually understand the instruments that were being traded. No doubt the people who created exotic Mortgage-Backed Securities were FE types... if only Moody's and S&P employed some as well, perhaps they wouldn't have been rated AAA. Then again, I'm assuming incompetence rather than malice; the ratings agencies did have incentives to lie.
  - fixxer 13y ago
    Cornell? What year? EDIT: I did mine at CU back in 2003 in applied, not FE. I had many friends in FE, most all went into credit. I worked in trading for six years before quitting for a PhD. I do not place any value on an FE degree; looking back at the curriculum they offered, it is obvious that they were thinking the wrong way (the credit models they were teaching were complete shit and they had no concept of micro-structure; ironic given Maureen O'Hara teaches at the Johnson School). EDIT2: The non-FE profs were and still are very awesome and remain good friends. Did you have Henderson?
    - bernardom 13y ago
      B.S.'08, M.Eng '09 Henderson is one of my favorites; I just went back for my 5-year and he was just so wonderful to talk to. The FE curriculum never really interested me; I took OR methods in FE as an undergrad and the professor (a surfer-dude postdoc from UCLA, Will Anderson) convinced me that the efficient market hypothesis was mostly right. After that, FE seemed a little... well, in the words of my classmate Ryan, "like looking at the surface of the waves to see if there are whales humping."
narenl 13y ago
IMO This is not targeted towards individuals applying on their own. I went to a walkabout of a similar online education company's office and asked them about the high cost for an online degree. The answer I received was 1. there is demand for this and 2. Most of the demand comes from people in the military serving in remote locations or people working inside other large organizations which foot the cost. and 3. They provide online infrastructure to courses of schools like UC-B, UNC etc and the colleges set the price so as not to dilute their "brand" because the online degree does not mention the fact that the degree was obtained online (this could have changed). All in all, my initial shock was a bit tempered after hearing the realities involving all 3 parties : the school, the student and the online enabler.
anigbrowl 13y ago
Narenl's comment is invisible due to a hellban. I don't agree with the comment, but it bears scrutiny. narenl 5 hours ago | link [dead] IMO This is not targeted towards individuals applying on their own. I went to a walkabout of a similar online education company's office and asked them about the high cost for an online degree. The answer I received was 1. there is demand for this and 2. Most of the demand comes from people in the military serving in remote locations or people working inside other large organizations which foot the cost. and 3. They provide online infrastructure to courses of schools like UC-B, UNC etc and the colleges set the price so as not to dilute their "brand" because the online degree does not mention the fact that the degree was obtained online (this could have changed). All in all, my initial shock was a bit tempered after hearing the realities involving all 3 parties : the school, the student and the online enabler.

af3 13y ago

60k - hehehe, good luck. People prolly will tell: "It's Berkeley, dude!".

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

shamino 13y ago

I was just going to write this exact comment. I am a data scientist, and I do not think the $60,000 price tag is worth it. I might do it for $2,000 or $3,000, but that's already being a little generous. The $60,000 price tag must come with a guarantee that you'll be making the proposed $110,000 - $130,000 salary range for at least 5 years. Otherwise, wow. The best way to learn these things is to just dive right in. If one need's human interaction, the community is easily within reach (at a much lower cost). Maybe one could argue that the "networking" is worth the price tag. Still, I get these "data meetup" emails about 5 times a day, which I could easily go to for networking.

geebee 13y ago

It sounds like a great degree program, and I'm encouraged to see it go on-line, but the $60K price tag seems over the top to me. Didn't Georgia Tech just announce an online MS for $7,000? I'm just not sure this makes sense. While tuition has gone way up at Berkeley, most science and engineering degrees are considered academic, rather than professional degrees, so the fees are considerably lower. http://registrar.berkeley.edu/Default.aspx?PageID=feesched.html http://registrar.berkeley.edu/Default.aspx?PageID=feesched.h... So yeah, law or business school tuition+fees (professional program) are between $50-$60 a year, but academic programs (which includes engineering) is less than half that. A lot of this comes down to whether data science will really be a "professional" degree with high earnings. Truth is, it might, I'm not ruling it out. I got an MS in Industrial Engineering from Berkeley after a math degree, hoping I could get something practical. I had some good experiences, but I also spent what was to me a depressing amount doing proofs about convex sets and stochastic processes. I probably shouldn't complain, that's what an academic degree program is. Maybe something like a professional program would have been much better for me. Another question is whether holding this degree is valuable independent of what you learn. I know that may sound silly, but it makes a difference. Suppose you were allowed to study law courses on coursera. How much would it be worth it to get to say your degree was officially from Harvard and now qualify for the bar, even if all you did was quietly watch the videos and do the homework? More than $60k, I'd say. Could the same be said for data science? You've watched the identical videos and done the homework... how much of a premium would it be worth to say you got an MS degree online from Berkeley? It would be worth something sure, but not as much as the law scenario. There's no "data science bar" that can prevent you from practicing, and there are so many different acceptable degree paths to becoming a data scientist. And while some may reasonably dispute this, I have found high tech to be more concerned with what you know than where you learned it. All in all... sounds like a great degree, but 60K definitely gives me pause.

mililani 13y ago
Yeah, they did; however, the Udacity program doesn't begin to accept new outside students until next year, and I think the program is closer to $8000. Anyways, it's such a steal, and I think the MS in comp sci is more flexible than a niche degree like data science. You could teach comp sci at a 2 year college, for example; whereas, a data science masters will just get you a job in the industry.