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I find the don't-go-to-school-just-do-it mentality that pervades tech blogs, article, discussions a bit short-sighted. I fully appreciate the importance of gett

I find the don't-go-to-school-just-do-it mentality that pervades tech blogs, article, discussions a bit short-sighted. I fully appreciate the importance of getting "hands-on experience" in addition to book learning, but what I don't get is the black-and-white perspective that formal education gives you NO EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER. As a PhD candidate, my perspective is quite definitely skewed, but my experience in school so far has not given me the impression that all I've been doing is book learning with no transferrable, real-world skills to work with data. I've had to work with plenty of data sets during my Masters and PhD research. I firmly believe that the experience I've gained from applying what I've learned in the classroom and from surveying existing literature on data mining and statistical methods stands me in good stead to tackle "real data" (whatever that means). Maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick, but I think that something more than the "odd stats class" can be of value to a budding data scientist ...

ThomPete 13y ago
Don't you find it odd that education start with the abstract to have you end up in reality. Data science is not about well structured data, it's not about learning what others do. I It's about finding meaningful information through experimentation with data and for that all you really need is a lot of experimentation, a creative mindset and the ability to extrapolate meaning and correlation out of seemingly uncorrelated data. First experiment, learn to play around, explore, then apply theory.
- kartikkumar 13y ago
  Actually, I don't think the process of going from abstract to reality is that odd. The reason I say that is because I think understanding the abstract prepares you to be flexible. In terms of data science, the way I see this is that by experimenting without having a grounding in the algorithms, technologies etc. means that you can only really ever get good at the specific implementations you're working with. The abstract understanding is precisely what allows you to be versatile in adopting new technologies and seeing the implementation for what it is: one concrete version of the underlying abstract ideas. There's nothing that says that formal education only prepares you to work with well-structured data. In fact, I think that in grad school you are challenged to work at the cutting edge almost all the time. Granted, a lot of classroom examples at the undergrad level are perhaps trivial, but my experience is that grad school doesn't by definition only serve to prep you with pointless examples. > It's about finding meaningful information through experimentation with data and for that all you really need is a lot of experimentation, a creative mindset and the ability to extrapolate meaning and correlation out of seemingly uncorrelated data. I totally agree, and I believe that school is not at odds with this. I'm working in the fields of planetary science and space engineering at the moment, and I am constantly stimulated to experiment with data, be creative and understand correlations. Maybe for some reason my experience is just not a good 3-sigma example ...
  - ThomPete 13y ago
    We don't start being philosophers, we don't start with music theory to learn music. We start as infants and learn to crawl, gobble, walk, talk, read, write, calculate through our interaction with the world, it informs us. The danger of starting with the abstract is that you make everyone generic and thus give them the same same frame of reference to think within.
    - kartikkumar 13y ago
      I am totally on-board with what you're saying, I guess I just don't buy into the idea that school != connected to the real world. I think the idea that everyone in academia is being philosophical and scholarly without contact with the real world is just wrong. There are plenty of practical skills that you can learn through school. Given the general anti-school sentiment I tend to come across in HN discussions, it might just be that I'm the odd one out when it comes to thinking that going to (grad) school is not at odds with gaining exposure to working with real world data.
      - ThomPete 13y ago
        It's not that school isn't connected to the real wold. It's that you don't need it besides a very few areas. And if that is the case why put yourself to debt to go to school when you don't have to? Why pay a lot of money up front to acquire a knowledge you can get for free. You will have to learn the rest of your life anyway without having to go to school. You have the worlds knowledge at your fingertips. You have any expert in any field you can ask about anything you want today for more or less free. I would even claim advicing against school in most cases is a moral just cause.
        kartikkumar 13y ago
        I guess the debt argument is one that I don't have direct experience with, since I'm going to school in Europe, where the norm is not that you come out of school saddled with debt that you'll be paying off for the rest of your life. So in that sense, I guess I get your argument for the "moral cause", but I think that's more a problem specific to the US and the administration of colleges as opposed to the problem with academia as a whole. It's true that you don't need school for a lot of things in life, but that's not the same as saying there's no value to going to school. Again, what irked me was simply the statement in the blog that other than the odd stats class, there's no value in going to school if you're an aspiring data scientist. I concede that there's a large difference between the added value of undergrad programs and grad school. I strongly disagree that you can substitute what grad school gives you by simply Googling it or by taking a few online classes. In particular, mastering your own research project I think gives you a lot of real-world skills and that includes working with real, unstructured data sets.
mattlutze 13y ago
(I'll admit to skimming up front) I didn't get the impression that he was suggesting people interested in Data Science should forego theory and lecture altogether. His argument for building applied skills first, was that it would motivate academic pursuit later (as well as being immediately applicable). If you're already reading for your Ph.D. we might assume you're not at a loss for motivation :-) (okay now I went back and reread) I also get the impression he's talking to an application-focused audience. 16 year olds looking at colleges, or 20 year olds considering a focus for a masters, are probably not the target audience of the Harvard Business Review.
- kartikkumar 13y ago
  Yea, I appreciate the fact that he isn't suggesting that people abandon school althogether. I think what irked me is his suggestion that school is maybe useful for the "odd stats class", suggesting to me that he doesn't believe that there is value beyond that. Perhaps my reading of the blog post isn't entirely correct. I agree that he's not making any statement directly to dissuade people from going to school. I just think that it's important to note that my experience of being in school is that it has given me freedom to be creative, experiment, play around with new technologies, and ultimately build applied skills. Perhaps I'm in the minority that feels that way ... EDIT: After reading the full blog post, I can see that his view is more nuanced than comes across on GigaOm.

ThomPete 13y ago

Don't you find it odd that education start with the abstract to have you end up in reality. Data science is not about well structured data, it's not about learning what others do. I It's about finding meaningful information through experimentation with data and for that all you really need is a lot of experimentation, a creative mindset and the ability to extrapolate meaning and correlation out of seemingly uncorrelated data. First experiment, learn to play around, explore, then apply theory.

kartikkumar 13y ago
Actually, I don't think the process of going from abstract to reality is that odd. The reason I say that is because I think understanding the abstract prepares you to be flexible. In terms of data science, the way I see this is that by experimenting without having a grounding in the algorithms, technologies etc. means that you can only really ever get good at the specific implementations you're working with. The abstract understanding is precisely what allows you to be versatile in adopting new technologies and seeing the implementation for what it is: one concrete version of the underlying abstract ideas. There's nothing that says that formal education only prepares you to work with well-structured data. In fact, I think that in grad school you are challenged to work at the cutting edge almost all the time. Granted, a lot of classroom examples at the undergrad level are perhaps trivial, but my experience is that grad school doesn't by definition only serve to prep you with pointless examples. > It's about finding meaningful information through experimentation with data and for that all you really need is a lot of experimentation, a creative mindset and the ability to extrapolate meaning and correlation out of seemingly uncorrelated data. I totally agree, and I believe that school is not at odds with this. I'm working in the fields of planetary science and space engineering at the moment, and I am constantly stimulated to experiment with data, be creative and understand correlations. Maybe for some reason my experience is just not a good 3-sigma example ...
- ThomPete 13y ago
  We don't start being philosophers, we don't start with music theory to learn music. We start as infants and learn to crawl, gobble, walk, talk, read, write, calculate through our interaction with the world, it informs us. The danger of starting with the abstract is that you make everyone generic and thus give them the same same frame of reference to think within.
  - kartikkumar 13y ago
    I am totally on-board with what you're saying, I guess I just don't buy into the idea that school != connected to the real world. I think the idea that everyone in academia is being philosophical and scholarly without contact with the real world is just wrong. There are plenty of practical skills that you can learn through school. Given the general anti-school sentiment I tend to come across in HN discussions, it might just be that I'm the odd one out when it comes to thinking that going to (grad) school is not at odds with gaining exposure to working with real world data.
    - ThomPete 13y ago
      It's not that school isn't connected to the real wold. It's that you don't need it besides a very few areas. And if that is the case why put yourself to debt to go to school when you don't have to? Why pay a lot of money up front to acquire a knowledge you can get for free. You will have to learn the rest of your life anyway without having to go to school. You have the worlds knowledge at your fingertips. You have any expert in any field you can ask about anything you want today for more or less free. I would even claim advicing against school in most cases is a moral just cause.
      - kartikkumar 13y ago
        I guess the debt argument is one that I don't have direct experience with, since I'm going to school in Europe, where the norm is not that you come out of school saddled with debt that you'll be paying off for the rest of your life. So in that sense, I guess I get your argument for the "moral cause", but I think that's more a problem specific to the US and the administration of colleges as opposed to the problem with academia as a whole. It's true that you don't need school for a lot of things in life, but that's not the same as saying there's no value to going to school. Again, what irked me was simply the statement in the blog that other than the odd stats class, there's no value in going to school if you're an aspiring data scientist. I concede that there's a large difference between the added value of undergrad programs and grad school. I strongly disagree that you can substitute what grad school gives you by simply Googling it or by taking a few online classes. In particular, mastering your own research project I think gives you a lot of real-world skills and that includes working with real, unstructured data sets.

mattlutze 13y ago

(I'll admit to skimming up front) I didn't get the impression that he was suggesting people interested in Data Science should forego theory and lecture altogether. His argument for building applied skills first, was that it would motivate academic pursuit later (as well as being immediately applicable). If you're already reading for your Ph.D. we might assume you're not at a loss for motivation :-) (okay now I went back and reread) I also get the impression he's talking to an application-focused audience. 16 year olds looking at colleges, or 20 year olds considering a focus for a masters, are probably not the target audience of the Harvard Business Review.

kartikkumar 13y ago
Yea, I appreciate the fact that he isn't suggesting that people abandon school althogether. I think what irked me is his suggestion that school is maybe useful for the "odd stats class", suggesting to me that he doesn't believe that there is value beyond that. Perhaps my reading of the blog post isn't entirely correct. I agree that he's not making any statement directly to dissuade people from going to school. I just think that it's important to note that my experience of being in school is that it has given me freedom to be creative, experiment, play around with new technologies, and ultimately build applied skills. Perhaps I'm in the minority that feels that way ... EDIT: After reading the full blog post, I can see that his view is more nuanced than comes across on GigaOm.