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Comment by erw1 | Hacker News Reader

What value does an advanced degree, in your opinion, bring to a data science position then? To hear you say it, it brings no value.

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What value does a bachelor’s degree have if some kid can just learn ruby and JavaScript on his own and go make $100k/yr at some startup? Of course a degree has value but it is possible to provide value without one. This is especially true in 2018 when anyone can learn pretty much anything online, and download whatever papers they want online and read them. Your mistake is in thinking that somehow a degree makes you special. It doesn’t. It just means you paid for a head start. Anyone can learn anything you already know and they can surpass your skill, whether or not you have a piece of paper certifying your knowledge.

You assume that everyone can teach themselves with the same efficiency and effectiveness as quality guided instruction from real teachers they can directly interact with. Some can, but most cannot. Education is not a waste.

Thats a pretty ignorant statement. I'd wager that there aren't many people who could/would put the same effort into self studying that would be required to pass a CS degree with decent grades. They also would probably not learn a lot of stuff that is not interesting to them, while CS students have no choice than to go through the materials. As an employer this also tells a story about who is taking the easy route vs working through a complete program over the span of years. Obviously there are exceptions, but when there are a lot of applicants for a position, it's just an easy filter for employers.

Prestige and artificially pumping salaries. It’s all about brand building.

I don’t have an advanced degree, just a bachelors of math from 1995, and have been breadboarding (and more), and coding since the 80s

I can follow along with ML and have implemented toys with the ML algorithms in a couple days.

It’s bourgeois intellectualism. Like a law firm only hiring from Harvard

ML is automated schema design. And the current methodology has known limits of applicability

This is “Mongo DB”, “devops” like hype all over again.

Well, to be more precise its like a law firm hiring only from those with law degrees.

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