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Comment by rdtwo | Hacker News Reader

I think one thing that’s missed here is that a degree is like a key that opens some number of doors. If you get a degree in material science you open a few doors. If you do a degree in mech engineering you open most of the same doors and then a whole bunch more, but a few are now locked. It’s important to pick a broad well known accredited degree so you can earn a key that opens the most doors. Don’t get bs degrees in shit like “robotics”

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^ This. It's why I was upset when my alma mater added a "Data Science" degree. Dude. Just double major in CS and math and take a few specific courses if this is your bag, we don't need a separate degree for this.

The data science degrees are essentially a vocational program for the students that would not be successful tackling the CS/math program.

People who major in CS/math are usually great data engineers but terrible data scientists. They don’t understand how to ask questions the right way, experimental design, how to evaluate the evidence. They are often more focused on the technical aspects and lack the domain knowledge. I strongly encourage my students to get a minor in a natural or social science for this reason.

100% agree about the DS degree. I have plans on getting a MS in stats starting in a year or 2. All the DS degrees list that you have to take a programming (Python/R) course and database course. I don't need those.

I want to know WHEN and WHY to use one stats method versus another.

A stats class won’t teach you that either. You probably want to look into a research methods or similar offered by a Sociology department. If you want to see how to apply stats to the real world, social science is your friend.

I got my first coding job merely by being in a CS degree program. There was a job board, people posted jobs, I answered a post, here's what I can code, I got a job. Degree not needed.

The degree was not the key. There were no gatekeepers.

Do I want that? It's sort of crazy. I'm getting old, I will need doctors at some point to keep me alive. "Don't worry, I answered a post on a job board, I totally know what I'm doing", the doctor said.

Don't want that. But it worked out for me.

This.

There are a handful of majors that are wide gateways: accounting (NOT finance), the core engineering disciplines, the core sciences, the core humanities (including Math). Choose one of those that matches your interests. Avoid the fashionable majors no matter what. Even CS can be underpowered and CE almost always is (do EE with a CS minor if you can handle the rigor of EE)

Some analysis I was reading suggested that the biggest driver in the increasing cost in universities was caused by the proliferation of different majors and classes (basically, these additional classes drove down the student/teacher ratio, even while most core classes remained full).

By offering niche degrees, modern universities are screwing over students in two ways:

- adding to their costs in the present

- narrowing the range of career opportunities in the future

By focusing on only the most useful degrees, a university could very easily compete on price and expected value.

Partially agree, but over a lifetime, many of us need only open a few doors. Picking an area of study that opens the doors you will want to open at some unknown time in the future is still hard. More is not necessarily better for everyone.

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