Getting a graduate degree in Statistics. Everyone who hears offers me help because they already took statistics...

What are you hoping to do with your degree?

Data Science, broadly speaking.

Hmm. It’s happened about a dozen times in 18 months, yet also involves “nearly everyone” you’ve talked to.

So are you bad at statistics or a weirdo loner?

Stop being such a snooty snob and know that they might be offering to help probably because you sound really dumb about statistics, despite trying to get a graduate degree, especially if so many folks as you claim are alarmed enough to offer you unsolicited help.

That's what I thought! Actually, my rant was for the PhD student to make him aware of some things that they are not taught much about from my experience.

that's why some of you voted for brexit. if more of you valued education and the process that it provides to think critically, you people would still be part of the EU.

Oh nice - I also work in DS in tech

Do you like it? Any advice for someone wanting to get into the field who is still in school?

You are not a dude. You are a nerd.

In terms of how to get into it in the first place - not really, though networking helps like in any field.
Once you’re in it - for people that come from academic there needs to be a mindset shift from going 100% all-in on a topic and explaining it in as much detail as possible, to DS where you need to be much more efficient with your time and focus your communication on the “so what” of the analysis instead of the mechanics. The ones who are able to make that shift are generally the ones that succeed.

Also once you’re at a certain baseline there are diminishing returns for increasing technical skills and becomes much more about communication / the “so what” to make your analysis impactful. A lot of the strongest DS’s I know rarely touch anything outside of SQL

PhDs in Physics and Applied Statistics here...trust me. EVERYbody who has no education on the subject you're dedicating years towards learning will always say they know more than you!

Tell them you can't remember the difference between an Abelian Group and a Vector space, and maybe they can remind you of what it is.

As a full-time professional tutor for nearly a decade, I get a lot of people who say, “Oh, I used to tutor in high school,” as if they were doing the same thing. Yeah, your homework help gig making minimum wage isn’t remotely close to the same thing as doing it ad a career in a competitive city.

Uhhh you know man, I'm as murican as apple pie but uh, something something about pots and kettles dude

The Dunning–Kruger effect (when low-ability and under informed people overestimate their ability and knowledge, etc.) has been made worse by the internet. Now anyone can look up terms and think they know as much as the dictionary! But seriously, "I did my own research" is not the same as a Ph.D. just because you did a google search. In part, this has lead to a lot of people discrediting professional, educated people and misunderstanding the value of education.

I once had an Uber diver tell me that the US government was 30+ years ahead of the universities on machine learning and artificial intelligence research - they just kept their results secret. My research is funded by the US government, I guess they're wasting their money

Stupid people often underestimate their stupidity. So it didn't occur to them that you already have a strong background in statistics?

Thanks. Is SQL really that important? I mean, I know it's ubiquitous, but I always thought it was one of those things that was almost taken for granted as a necessary skill, just one skill in a Data Scientist's skillset. Can people really make a career off of SQL alone?

That's what I'm currently doing :)

Depends on the company though - some companies require more technical skills. Where I work DS doesn't work on ML or things like that, so python/R/etc. can be useful but not necessarily required.