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From PhD to Data Scientist: Tips for Making the Transition
- tomrod 13y agoI'm currently finishing a PhD in economics and have spent a lot of time learning the exact technologies he suggests (Python, SQL, a bit of R). Working as a data scientist would be an awesome opportunity. But are most companies _really_ in need of so many data scientists, or is it just a trend?
- shoyer 13y agoWell, if you believe Insight's white paper (http://insightdatascience.com/Insight_White_Paper_2013.pdf http://insightdatascience.com/Insight_White_Paper_2013.pdf), the answer is "Yes".
- tomrod 13y agoDang, the graphics in this are terrible and unreadable. But it "looks" positive. Thanks for the link. Do you know anyone who went through the program?
- shoyer 13y agoActually, yes. I had dinner on Monday with the author of this article. Obviously Insight worked out very well for him.
- tomrod 13y agoThis may be too forward, but could you put me in touch? Going the data science route is an option I've been seriously considering for awhile, and this might be the chance I've been looking for. If you're not comfortable with putting me in touch, that's fine. Thanks much!
- fiatmoney 13y ago"Data scientist" is a terribly broad term that's begun to encompass a lot of jobs that used to be called "junior analyst" or somesuch.
- Petefine 13y agoThere certainly is an overlap. But for me, the difference between a Data Scientist and an Analyst is that the Data Scientist uses the data to build stuff (eg a recommendation engine, or a forecasting system). They can also use more technical skills to aid analysis (nlp, scripting, etc).
- jkldotio 13y agoI think it's a new name for an old thing, lots of jobs through the last century had things like "analyst" attached to them. Business has been about measuring things for a long time, look at Taylorism or Gosset at Guinness in 1899 for example.[1][2] A few little 1% gains from some A/B tests, or looking at geographic breakdowns of customers from IPs or addresses add up. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management [2]http://www.umass.edu/wsp/statistics/tales/gosset.html http://www.umass.edu/wsp/statistics/tales/gosset.html
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- aet 13y agoHave you already started into your specialty? Maybe you should do econometrics.
- tomrod 13y agoI'm far into my fields. I do econometrics, computational economics, and industrial organization.
- petegrif 13y agoIt is a trend. The question is rather, is it a trend that is likely to persist? And that depends on whether you believe that organizations are likely to capture and store more data or less. If you believe the answer is 'more' then the problem becomes deriving insights from it. And that process - is data science.
- Blahah 13y agoSweet, according to his list I'm over-qualified. Interesting to think it would be so easy to make the transition to data science. Except I can't imagine wanting to work on less important problems than the ones I work on now. Global food security vs. social network analytics. Yeah, fuck the money. edit: calling all data scientists - why not consider becoming a computational biologist? We have hard problems, real outcomes that affect people's lives, and not much money.
- scott_s 13y agoNot everyone has the luxury of working in the field they got a PhD in. Two of my friends were looking into switching to data science positions because they were having problems finding positions in their fields. One was on her second post-doc as an astrophysicist, and the other is a soon-to-gradute biochemist. Both did find positions in their fields, but not before much fear and existential angst.
- Blahah 13y agoI can certainly see how the harsh realities of the job market might force one's hand. It sounds like your friends' priorities were the same as mine though...
- scott_s 13y agoActually, no. One of them actually preferred a data science position, and was scheduled to interview for this very program. But that person's spouse was not okay with moving to California, so that option was out, and a post-doc position came through.
- besquared 13y agoYou're everything that everyone hates in academia. Congratulations as I hear that self importance is one of the key ingredients to solving the biggest problems facing the world today.
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- lior60 13y agoAny possibility for a dev-minded MBA (finance) to make the data science transition? I was pretty good back in the data with respect to R
- eshvk 13y agoThere is no magical set of qualifications to become a data scientist. Just learn enough linear algebra, probability. Show people you can code. Maybe setup some github projects. It is not like people in tech are doing something magical with all these fancy data scientists. A little bit of math, a slap and dash of code.
- lior60 13y agoAre data scientists whom are in demand today dealing with neural networks and machine learning, or are a large majority still working with large sets of data and running correlation analyses/regressions? Your response above seems to indicate that it's not overly complicated.
- eshvk 13y agoIt depends; I personally haven't used neural networks since graduating. Standard machine learning algorithms get used. I work with large data sets all the time. Sometimes correlations, regression things. The point is that 95% of the stuff that gets used on a day to day basis is not hard to learn. Especially if your background in linear algebra, probability and statistics is good. The five percent that delves into more complicated things can be figured out on the job.
- lior60 13y agoThank you for you candid and thoughtful answer :)
- flanger 13y agoFor those looking to make the transition to data science, another option is Zipfian Academy (http://www.zipfianacademy.com/ http://www.zipfianacademy.com/). No PhD required.
- shoyer 13y agoNo PhD required, but you're expected to pay 14k in tuition. In contrast, Insight pays you. If you want to pay money for experience, why not get an actual degree from an accredited institution? A more realistic alternative to Insight is to do a (paid) internship at a tech company. This is the path I took.
- clearspandex 13y agoOften advanced degrees at universities are much more expensive (http://datascience.berkeley.edu/admissions/tuition-and-financial-aid/ http://datascience.berkeley.edu/admissions/tuition-and-finan...) than an intensive program such as Zipfian and take much longer. I hope that private education institutions (such as GA, Hackbright, Dev Bootcamp, etc.) can coexist happily with traditional universities, as they each fill a different niche. Universities are in the business of training researchers and professors (and do a great job at that) while alternative educational companies aim to produce industry practitioners (similar to trade schools). I highly recommend internships and they are wonderful if you can get one. Unfortunately not everyone can be so lucky, either due to lack of experience/technical abilities or an advanced degree (not everyone goes to college). I believe these alternative educational routes are democratizing such industries and many of them offer scholarships and tuition assistance programs.
- fitandfunction 13y agoTechnical skills aside, the best piece of advice in the article is "show them that you want it." I've conducted countless interviews / hires where it basically went: candidates P & Q are the best on paper and in person, but candidate P said x, y, z or did a, b, c, and seems to really want this job and work in our company x, y, z was sometimes as simple as enthusiasm, and other times was in describing what he/she did in their spare time. a, b, c was usually a project for work, school or fun that was highly relevant. Intellectually, I think I know that "enthusiasm" is a poor / weak predictor of success. But, emotionally, it's a go-to tie-breaker.
- rogerchucker 13y agoShould I start putting every substantial R/Python script I write, even if they are based on some tutorials, on the Github/Personal-Website? Is that how I "show"? I missed the Github bus for all my previous projects.
- zhemao 13y agoWhat do you mean you "missed" the github bus? If you still have the code saved somewhere, you can just create a new repo and put it up there.
- fitandfunction 13y agoNo need to point to projects that are based on tutorials. Lots of githubs are nothing more than that at this point. If you're going to go the coding route, put up a working page, publish a blog entry about it, publish a working app, etc. The key is to show effort (I spent time on this) and relevancy (I'm solving a problem that you might care about).
- losethos 13y agoIra sees quantum random number sites and says "It's a trick." God says... 1:19 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg; because in his days the earth was divided: and his brother's name was Joktan. 1:20 And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah, 1:21 Hadoram also, and Uzal, and Diklah, 1:22 And Ebal, and Abimael, and Sheba, 1:23 And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan. 1:24 Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah, 1:25 Eber, Peleg, Reu, 1:26 Serug, Nahor, Terah, 1:27 Abram; the same is Abraham. 1:28 The sons of Abraham; Isaac, and Ishmael. 1:29 These are their generations: The firstborn of Ishmael, Nebaioth; then Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam, 1:30 Mishma, and Dumah, Massa, Hadad, and Tema, 1:31 Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. These are the sons of Ishmael. 1:32 Now the sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine: she bare Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. And the sons of Jokshan; Sheba, and Dedan. ---- joke tan and peg leg, etc.
- gburt2 13y ago"Recursive programming"... as in, programming using recursion? Why would this be important to "data science"? Surely loops are just as effective.
- dudurocha 13y agoAre you serious? How would you iterate over a set of rules and a big data volume, without using recursion?
- aet 13y agoA loop? Can you please explain?
- petegrif 13y ago'Explain'?
- wavefunction 13y agoI assume the "explain" refers to the most important thing you can learn about recursive programming: that it is often but not always the least efficient strategy when compared with looping. So the claim that recursive programming is the only or primary method of iterating over large data sets requires some explanation...
- UK-AL 13y agoI haven't read the article but i'm guessing this a reference to divide and conquer methods. Such as map reduce used in hadoop and such.
- rogerchucker 13y agoShould have studied harder in undergrad. All the current "Fellows" are from top tier schools :(