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What's a good place to start in terms of finding small projects to start making a portfolio of? I'm fresh out of a master's in Math and Statistics, and have a little Python knowledge (and general programming knowledge from C, Matlab, etc), but don't know a lot about any specific data science tools or anything yet.
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Jan 30, 2018 23:32
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Catchafire and Taproot sometimes need volunteers for this sort of thing, and since you're providing free labor they'll tolerate your lack of experience while you build up your portfolio.
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Feb 3, 2018 17:28
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How's the grind been treating you fine folks? I haven't kept up nearly enough since August due to a bunch of work and personal malarkey.
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Feb 12, 2018 23:21
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Cut down to just CS (from CS and maths) so that I can finish as quickly as possible. My wife and I want to move overseas and away from Australia when I'm done, so trying to find a job in the US or wherever should be interesting…
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Feb 13, 2018 00:04
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Humble bundle has some books on machine learning as part of an ai bundle by Packt. Thoughts on quality of these books?
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Mar 13, 2018 21:20
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The books in question. I don't think that's a great arrangement for someone who's just starting out or for someone who knows a lot and wants to make the jump to being an expert, but if you fall somewhere in between, throw down $15 and see how it goes.
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Mar 14, 2018 00:18
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I'm looking at getting them as the python ones and the deep learning using R are of interest to me.
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Mar 14, 2018 03:16
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I'm halfway through the Coursera machine learning course on the recommendation of this thread. It's been interesting so far but I didn't expect so much advanced calculus. My background is business and I'm a casual programmer so the coding part doesn't faze me but geez the stats/maths part is intimidating. I haven't done anything mathematically more complex than discounted cash flow models for about 14 years and while I understand the intuition, I wouldn't be able to derive any of the formulas. How much of what you'd do day to day in data science roles involves in depth mastery of mathematical theory? Is this just a foundational knowledge piece that you just need to learn and get comfortable with to know how your tools work? I don't mind cleaning up data or working with crappy systems that are crappy at collecting data but if I need to be able to get up and whiteboard advanced calculus at the drop of a hat, I'm not sure this is for me.
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Mar 15, 2018 13:07
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How's everyone doing in their transition into data science? Know some ppl are doing data science boot camps. 3 month full time affairs, 1 found a good high 5-figure job within 6 months of completing his camp and another is about 75% of the way through his camp. I hate the idea of taking time off from work to do this fulltime but I've found my time is much more effectively spent coding when I'm in a collaborative environment where I can ask quick questions to help move me along. Any of you rascals doing a boot camp? JIZZ DENOUEMENT fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Dec 23, 2019 |
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Apr 17, 2018 17:32
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JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:Hello you beautiful sluts. How's everyone doing in their transition into data science? Which boot camp(s)? I'm very tired of my current job and total lack of options in my stagnant field, so I'm seriously considering taking a year off to travel and then do one of these camps. Working on it in my free time simply isn't enough.
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Apr 26, 2018 17:09
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MickeyFinn posted:Which boot camp(s)? I'm very tired of my current job and total lack of options in my stagnant field, so I'm seriously considering taking a year off to travel and then do one of these camps. Working on it in my free time simply isn't enough. Forgot, will follow-up with my SO's friends and get back to you. I also agree that doing it in freetime isn't enough. The return on time invested for something technical like this is so much better in a collaborative environment where you can just immediately ask a question and get an answer, instead of banging your head against a programming issues while scouring stack overflow for answers. The bootcamp also seems valuable because there's strong networking and recruitment pipelines, which is definitely part of the appeal.
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Apr 26, 2018 20:15
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Welp, I finally got a study group organized for tomorrow via Coursera. We may or may not try and do some pair programming on our own using some local government datasets. Not sure how this is gonna go, hopefully I'll learn something out of it!
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Apr 27, 2018 13:11
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I'm currently active duty military but I spend most of my time at work on call, so I've started studying finance, which then lead me to learning about simple forecasting methods, which lead me into statistics, where I then realized that the only way anyone makes any forecasting stuff work enough to be not totally worthless is through methods that require massive amounts of computing power, which has taken me down the road of learning python and "datascience" though I don't know if it's cool to say "datascience" anymore.
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Jun 2, 2018 22:08
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Has anyone used Processing for any data visualizations? i want to play around with making the visuals, and Ive used it before and I like it. It seems strong to me, but idk if using a different module(?) would make more sense. Are there any jobs between data science and development?
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Jun 4, 2018 23:28
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Acquaintance did a 3-month intensive boot camp, looked for a job for 3 months, got hired on prohibition/testing for 6, and just now received a full-time employment offer for $100,000. 12 months total. You can do it too my friends.
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Jun 9, 2018 00:42
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JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:Acquaintance did a 3-month intensive boot camp, looked for a job for 3 months, got hired on prohibition/testing for 6, and just now received a full-time employment offer for $100,000.
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Jun 9, 2018 17:40
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Vegetable posted:What's his background? I had a friend go from wet lab science with no programming experience to a very junor bug hunter at a company making ~$50k a year (min wage in Australia is $35, she lives in an expensive city). She completed one of those bootcamp but mentioned that nearly everyone else had prior programming experience. This is realistically the best possible outcome after a boot camp.
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Jun 20, 2018 01:52
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Vegetable posted:What's his background? Theater / service industry
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Jun 20, 2018 22:36
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Suspicious Lump posted:Physics, mathematics, statistics, engineering, pick one. once you're in the industry the key is you keep learning and stay aggressive on the job front. Tech isn't the meritocracy everyone wishes it was but 50 to 120 is easier than 0 to 50, if that makes sense.
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Jun 21, 2018 04:31
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Xguard86 posted:once you're in the industry the key is you keep learning and stay aggressive on the job front. Tech isn't the meritocracy everyone wishes it was but 50 to 120 is easier than 0 to 50, if that makes sense. JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:Theater / service industry
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Jun 27, 2018 06:22
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Oh hey its the thread for me. 33 years old, BA in political science, couple years in sales, now working through Udacity's Data Science course. Usually an hour or two after work. Ill keep you updated.
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Sep 3, 2018 23:53
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Leng posted:I'm halfway through the Coursera machine learning course on the recommendation of this thread. It's been interesting so far but I didn't expect so much advanced calculus. Anyone want to weigh in on this? Not having a strong maths background myself I would like to know. For content: I'm putzing around learning programming on FreeCodeCamp and the free Data Science course MSFT put together on eDX. I don't think I'm going to make a full career transition into either but more doing it as a hobby and to offer some diversity in my work. I've unfortunately(?) progressed pretty far in my career that I would have to take a significant salary drop to transition into these fields. Maybe I could move to a leadership position of these but then I'm just trading the same job type for just another discipline. That being said, I did a cool project recently using some of the ideas in the Data Science course that has gone much farther in my company than I expected. Backdooring data science in a culture that doesn't respect data may sometimes work for you.
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Sep 6, 2018 00:23
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TraderStav posted:Anyone want to weigh in on this? Not having a strong maths background myself I would like to know. The thing is that there's a lot of room in what gets counted as a "data scientist" position. One end, you have people who are essentially researchers, and they have to know the theory in order to be able to engage with and advance the literature. On the other hand, you have BI folks who've been the beneficiaries of title inflation, and don't really need any serious understanding of anything beyond their industry. I think that at this point, most of the open positions are towards the latter end of the spectrum, but maybe not all the way there. On the other hand, the jobs towards the former end tend to pay a bit better. I think it's fine to break in without knowing too much math, but that you are going to be limited in what you can do at some point unless you pick that up somehow. That said, I'm very much on the research-ish side of things, so my perspective may be skewed.
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Sep 6, 2018 00:50
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Oh hey, I forgot to report back.TraderStav posted:I don't think I'm going to make a full career transition into either but more doing it as a hobby and to offer some diversity in my work. I've unfortunately(?) progressed pretty far in my career that I would have to take a significant salary drop to transition into these fields. Maybe I could move to a leadership position of these but then I'm just trading the same job type for just another discipline. I am basically in the same position in that I've decided that I'm done with climbing the hierarchy and now just focus on accumulating high value skills and expertise in areas that interest me. TraderStav posted:That being said, I did a cool project recently using some of the ideas in the Data Science course that has gone much farther in my company than I expected. Backdooring data science in a culture that doesn't respect data may sometimes work for you. And this too!   My cool project is opening up all sorts of conversations, making people curious and interested in actually improving our processes. I started it as an experiment just to help with consolidating my own learning but now I'm keen to see how far I can take it. I'd love to get it implemented for real!What doing the project did teach me though is that I know just enough to know that I'm making mistakes, and not enough to know how to fix them. Time to start working through the rest of the recommended courses...
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Sep 7, 2018 11:09
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Hey y'all, I was looking for some input (cross posted from the 'data science' thread). I'm doing the 'transition to data science by going back to school in your mid-20's', so pretty similar. I'm ~2 years into an undergrad degree, and looking to get a relevant major and then get a one-year Masters at my current university. I know that I enjoy CS and Statistics, and want to pursue both, but I'm not sure which major/Masters combo would be the best fit for that/if there's an appreciable difference in how relevant each would be to the field. Working backwards, my first choice for a Masters program is Data Science masters, but it's extremely difficult to get in to. The other two options are a Masters in Statistics (whereas the Data Science program is about 2:1 ratio of CS to Stats, this is ~1:2) and in Computer Science (I'd probably do a focus in 'Information Analytics', which focuses on ML/databases). Prior to that, for my BS, I also have a choice between either 'Mathematics and Computational Science', a STATS/CS degree, or a straight CS degree with a focus on ML/Analytics. For the former degree, I would do more econometrics/higher level stats whereas for the latter I would have more classes on programming/databases/ML. I'm having trouble evaluating the relative merits of these different degree paths. I really enjoy the hands-on problem solving aspects of data science work, applied statistics (vs. theory), and building out tools. What I want out of these degrees are: 1) To build skills that will be useful in the workplace. 2) To get a strong theoretical background in stats/CS. 3) To get a degree that will allow me to progress in the field (i.e., I've noticed a lot of intermediate level analyst positions require an MA). 4) To get a better idea of what parts of the field I particularly like and what I want to pursue more in depth. Do y'all have any thoughts on what in particular to look for when looking at different class offerings/talking to people about the different programs, or which set of degrees would best prepare me for working? My instinct is that the Math/CS BS and the Data Science or Stats Masters would be the most relevant, but I don't have a good idea of how a straight CS degree fits or how to evaluate their relative merits. Finally, am I correct in thinking that not having a MA/quantitative degree will eventually be an issue? So far my internships/jobs have been with organizations that have very few people with quantitative skills, so my willingness to spend a lot of time on StackOverflow and ability to use R has been sufficient to let me do interesting work, but I've had a lot more trouble getting proper analyst positions.
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Sep 13, 2018 18:04
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RIP ZEEZ
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My general advice for people who are looking to pick a major is to double up in stats and CS, and then do a master's in whichever of those you like better. You can do other things, but that's the easiest route into the career, so I think you need reason to do those other things. I'm not a fan of any data science master's programs I've seen. I think they're mostly a cash cow for the university that offers them. foutre posted:Finally, am I correct in thinking that not having a MA/quantitative degree will eventually be an issue? So far my internships/jobs have been with organizations that have very few people with quantitative skills, so my willingness to spend a lot of time on StackOverflow and ability to use R has been sufficient to let me do interesting work, but I've had a lot more trouble getting proper analyst positions. It probably will be. I don't have the exact numbers, but from the last BurtchWorks report I think something like 45% of data scientists have a PhD, 50% have a master's but no PhD, 5% have only a bachelor's, and the people who don't have any degree are rounding error. I would expect the percentage of people without a PhD will go up over time, but most of those positions will go to master's holders.
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Sep 13, 2018 23:54
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I am competent at finding out how to accomplish and then accomplishing programming solutions to the projects I decide I want to do. If I ever wanted to do programming as a job though, I feel there are two things that are super important I have no skills with. 1. Writing maintainable code. My code is all hacked together spaghetti nonsense. It's fine for just me but in a career setting I know the way I program would be somewhere between hindrance and unacceptable. 2. Systems for having multiple people work on the same project, like GitHub. Since I just make things myself I have no idea about this besides that it's important and useful. What would be the best way to address these issues in case I want to transition into professional programming in the future?
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Sep 15, 2018 13:01
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- hi
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Another old trying to transition careers here. I'm wondering if I can get either part-time work (ideal) or just random projects while I'm still in my current career so I have real work I can show to make the transition easier (i.e. take less or no pay cut to start). I'm currently going through a Masters in Analytics program. Short story is that I'm not 100% set on changing careers and I figured the degree would work better for trying to get better jobs in my current field instead of a certification or trying to explain to an HR drone the idea of EdX or udacity. If that works out, I may just stay, but I'm getting pretty sick of working for the government so may look to leave even if I did get something better. I also like having structure rather than just making my own schedule which doesn't always work out. My current job is boring and while I'm paid decently I have almost nothing to do at work and that seems unlikely to change. I currently spend a lot of my time on random websites and doing classwork. I'd love to spend this time doing something more productive and no one seems to care if I have my laptop open at my office doing something else as long as I'm caught up. I literally do 4-5 hours of work some weeks. So I have a lot of time to work on other things but I'd need to work remotely unless we suddenly start teleworking like they've been saying we're about to for the last year+. I'm trying to get them to let me do some analysis here as we actually have a need for it and no one capable of doing anything but we are not run well and it's unlikely my offer to do extra work at no expense will go anywhere. (I've been trying to take on extra projects for about two years now and always get shot down because it might mean 2% extra work for a manager who doesn't want to do it). *We've learned some R (general data manipulation/exploration plus statistical tests/graphing with HH), SQL, and now are using JMP Pro in a data mining course, if what I have learned how to use is relevant to the question.
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Sep 15, 2018 17:07
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Ocean Book posted:I am competent at finding out how to accomplish and then accomplishing programming solutions to the projects I decide I want to do. If I ever wanted to do programming as a job though, I feel there are two things that are super important I have no skills with. Finding a well maintained open source project that's interesting to you and contributing to it will go a long way for both of these. The project owners should review any code you want to push up and will help point out problems (note though that they aren't acting as free teachers though - you'll need to contribute actual value to be worth their while). You'll also need to learn how certain control and git works in order to work on the project in the first place.
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Sep 15, 2018 17:11
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I've been looking to get into robotics, having just completed the Udacity Robotics Software Engineer Nanodegree. My main background is mechanical engineering, yet I had noticed that all the fun stuff in robotics is biased more towards software. What are some good strategies for networking and job hunting there? drat near all the tech meetups and hackathons I've been seeing are focused on web development, mobile apps, data analysis, database stuff, and other things you might hear about in a Dilbert strip. Also, I have zero interest in living anywhere near the Bay Area.
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Oct 3, 2018 04:04
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Another friend of a friend from that program who was an English major just finished the boot camp and is now making $150k for a ride share company. I don’t know if it’s this successful everywhere, for everyone... but these dudes did not seem like the brightest bulbs in the box and yet they are making it work. Maybe it’s just the Bay location. JIZZ DENOUEMENT fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Dec 23, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2018 22:31
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JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:Another friend of a friend from that program who was an English major just finished the boot camp and is now making $150k for a ride share company. It's just the general state of the market right now. Data science is a very similar skillset as quant engineers back in 2005-2007 where joe schmo could get a MFE and start out at 120k+, then 2008 hit and the whole market died.
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Dec 1, 2018 07:47
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Vomik posted:It's just the general state of the market right now.
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Dec 1, 2018 08:24
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Being a fresh graduate counts for a lot in a market like this.
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Dec 1, 2018 17:13
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ultrafilter posted:Being a fresh graduate counts for a lot in a market like this. I wish there was a ladder of opportunity for people like me who were lost in the recession
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Dec 1, 2018 23:19
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If you do a fresh course and graduate in a data science course or similar it would count for something. While you probably already have the skills it's something to try to get a foot in the door.
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Dec 3, 2018 07:57
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Hey I'm not sure if this is the right thread or even the right subforum, but I can't find a better place to ask this question. I tried the simple/stupid questions thread in A/T but didn't have much luck.Farrier Theaks posted:I'm a technical writer but mostly for SELC stuff like process improvement, patch and vulnerability management, etc. I keep my ear open for job offers but a lot of the better (read: higher paying) ones are about UX/UI, API documentation, or SEO optimization. I don't know anything at all about that side of the street; is there a good online resource for learning about that sort of thing? Are there any specific classes about it I should take to beef up a resume, if I wanted to apply for that sort of job?
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Dec 15, 2018 21:41
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Love Stole the Day posted:I wish there was a ladder of opportunity for people like me who were lost in the recession I wasn't even lost in the recession and I'm having trouble breaking in with a physics PhD. I know it counts for nothing and I have no advice, but I feel you.
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Dec 21, 2018 16:43
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MickeyFinn posted:I wasn't even lost in the recession and I'm having trouble breaking in with a physics PhD. I know it counts for nothing and I have no advice, but I feel you. Why data science? I don’t know if the physics PhD has the same cachet there as other quant fields like finance. Hedge funds and banks love physic phds and the departments are mostly run by physic PhD who are looking for more. Field is smaller but pay is way higher.
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Dec 22, 2018 00:59
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The average quality of life at tech companies is much higher than at financial companies.
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Dec 22, 2018 01:05
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