Ask HN: Thoughts on an MS in Data Science?
My university just announced an 11-month professional masters program for data science: http://people.virginia.edu/~jjh2b/msds/
Is it worth it?
Is it worth it?
Data science is such a complex skillset that to reach mastery nothing beats an apprenticeship (sitting elbow-to-elbow with people who are world-class at it). This is why we are launching an an intensive 12-week pair-programming-based course called Data Science Retreat: http://datascienceretreat.com
It assumes people have gone through at least one of the popular MOOCs, and know one programming language well. Then it builds from there.
On top of that, it tries to bump up business and communication skills, which are often lacking in many PhD-level people. We want to record presentations, given in front of a non-technical audience, and use the recording to give laser-targeted feedback. If you cannot convince the CEO in a 10-min. meeting, all your predictive modeling efforts will be wasted.
Disclaimer: I'm one of the organizers.