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What should I do if I will get a CS degree and have little knowledge of statistics, but I enrolled in a MS-data science program?

  • I am a student majoring in computer Science, i have less knowledge about statistics let alone the Data Science. But i am enrolled into a MS-Data Science program in 2014fall. and there are some idea: 1) to be a data scientist, but is it prefer a PHD degree rather than a MS degree. maybe when i graduate after two years. i still cannot find a data scientist job. 2) learning the Data Science knowledge and to be a data analysis after i graduate, but i have little knowledge in statistics, what i learned is about programming, software engineering, and area related to CS. is it worth to learn about the Data Science? for me, i think it's a new area. 3) the program can  choose many courses in CS department, maybe i can all choose the CS courses except the compulsory course, but it also have some restrict, some courses such as OS, SE cannot be learned(because it have less relation to DS). after i graduate, choose to be a programmer in SV what's your suggestion? add: don't tell me choose by my interests, because i have not learned the knowledge of DS, i even don't know whether or not i like it. but in computer science, i don't reject programming but also take it just as my career(not my love) Also, i know, as a international student, programmer is the more easily to find a good job than any other major, that's why i am get into a tangle

  • Answer:

    Thanks for the A2A A couple thoughts, because you have a lot of content above... 1. Yes, there is some preference for PhD's in Data Science, but really your experience is going to be much more important. If you work on some great projects while you are getting your Masters and you have some solid work to show, you should not struggle to find work. Different organizations have different needs and are at different levels of maturity in their needs so you could find something if you are good at what you do, for sure. 2. If you don't know anything about it and think it's an attractive opportunity then why not spend time exploring it? What do you have to lose? 3. Not exactly sure what you're getting at here, if you clear up question 3 I'm happy to answer it. Bottom line: there is some overlap between programmers and data scientists in terms of the technical skills, but fundamentally there are very different. Do some data science on your own at a lower level (there's tons of machine learning stuff online that you can get into) and see how you like it. If solving problems like that is very attractive to you, moreso than programming, then you have a pretty good answer. You will likely find work in either area. I will say this though, your ability to communicate effectively to a variety of stakeholders in an organization is very important for data science. If you are going to go that route I would spend some time refining your communication skills. When one of our programmers builds something that "just works" they have more leeway on putting it in production. When one of our data scientists builds something there is great scrutiny about how it works to make sure that we don't do anything negative to our customers on either side of the platform, because any full automation and segmentation tends to be a pretty big decision. As a result they frequently have to justify their work to execs while the programmers rarely do. Just my opinion based on my limited experience.

Jack Hanlon at Quora Visit the source

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em, thanks for inviting me to answer this question. I feel flattened. I am listing some truth/facts about data scientist jobs, and you can make your decision. there is no single major giving 'data scientist' degrees. Data scientists are by experience: statistics, machine learning, numerical analysis and intuition of data have been trained during the real life research work, so we can see data scientists from many different majors: they used to be physicists (I was one of them), mathematicians, statisticians and computer scientists. It is good to have research experience as well as industrial experience if available. Please leave a comment if I have missed any majors: smart people are everywhere :-) Different majors different strength, there is no single bar of qualifying a good data scientist. You have CS background which is important for being a data scientist, and I see many people with different background working nicely in the same team. It is good to know more than just CS. Data science world needs divergent (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1840309/) :-). And, always, 'give it a try' is essential in data science. Data problems in different companies are unique and no one can know the solution before giving a try. About MS vs PhD. A PhD degree is not essential. In 2013 and 2014 job market, PhDs have advantages: PhDs have research experience, they know how to solve problems in a good way, and they work patiently from the beginning to the end, so companies like PhDs. I know Hopkins university's nice data science courses. Hope we will have more good data scientists, either PhD or MS. And one additional comment, not about data scientist job itself. Job market is tough but I don't suggest  'easy-to-find-job' as the top standard of choosing majors. I know many unhappy examples who have been working only for money. I am trying my best to follow "don't tell me choose by my interests". P.S. A small comment: a more clear question could have helped solving my procrastination from answering this it. :-)

Hongliang Liu

Thanks for A2A. You have lot of divergent thoughts, which is natural while making such decisions. I think the crux of your thoughts is two fold: 1. You are not sure whether you like data science or not 2. You are not sure of the job prospects of data science. For the first part, I would suggest take some online courses on coursera. You can start with https://www.coursera.org/course/ml or https://www.edx.org/course/mitx/mitx-15-071x-analytics-edge-1416 and some other from my list here- . This should give you a definitive idea of whether you would like data science or not. You must decide this before progressing forward. For the second part, I would disagree with you that a programmer job is more easy to find. There are a whole and really a whole lot of programmers (so it makes for tough competition), but there is a significant dearth of good data scientists at present. Any job trend indicator will testify the same (check on http://indeed.com). Harvard calls it the sexiest job of 21st century- http://hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the-21st-century/ar/1. You cannot go wrong with the job prospect of a data scientist. So in my opinion, you only need to decide the first part and then your decision will be much easier.

Pronojit Saha

Hi there - here are my thoughts... First of all, let me clear up a little bit of the confusion around "Data Science." Data scientists can't do everything required in data science. Stay away from recruiters looking for a data scientist that can do everything data science. It's like asking someone to do everything Engineering. I work with a team of data scientists with various backgrounds. My focus is in Statistics, some of my coworkers are heavy computer science, some are more data strategy/business focused, and some just have great quantitative skills. Like every career, you will eventually need to choose a focus in the Data Science area. If you enjoy building things, I'd recommend focusing on comupter science and how it relates to data. If you like solving puzzles, I'd recommend focusing on statistics. Data scientists with a computer science background spend more time taking algorithms from the statisticians and making them work in a production environment. They also build the systems holding the data to be efficient, flexible, and scalable. Data scientists with a statistics background spend more time mining the data for common patterns or searching through the data to find answers to business questions. Now to answer your specific questions... 1. I wouldn't say that PhD is necessarily preferred over MS. PhD work and research is usually on the cutting-edge of research and many companies are far behind the cutting-edge. Employers worry that PhD's will be unhappy in an industry setting because they won't be able to use all the fancy algorithms they've learned in their research. However, a PhD that has some industry experience along the way can be very desirable. It shows that someone is interested in industry while staying on top of the latest research. 2. I agree with Jack Hanlon on this one... what do you have to lose if you're interested? Data Science is hot right now and will continue to expand in the industry. Even if you don't decide to pursue a Data Science career, understanding what it is will be valuable. 3. Not sure what you are asking here. Sounds like you'd like to do more CS and are worried a Data Science degree won't let you do much CS... if so, you are right. A Data Science graduate program will not give you the same amount of Computer Science rigor you'll get from a CS graduate program. I'd recommend talking to a career counselor at your school to see if they'd let you take a few of the CS classes you want outside the Data Science curriculum. My hunch is that the Data Science program is new enough that they won't mind. Good luck!!

Rachel Poulsen

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