BS I agree, but to be fair Microsoft Excel skills are still pretty poor from what I see (or I’m a super user). I think the ability to think about problems in logical steps takes a while to develop. But I think things like Jupyter makes the moat less wide, since it makes it easier to do things in steps vs all at once.
Kinda… Start by diving directly into the ML libraries and only go back and brush up the math if it’s proving to be a roadblock rather than mastering the math first then starting the ML. Life’s too short for the latter approach. And the former approach will leave you only studying the targetted math you need for ML rather than blindly learning a bunch of math that you might not actually need.
Ok, I’m just going to say it, we’re talking about different things here. Op is talking about scoring roles that pay six figures and for most of us nay sayers going back to a point where you think about your pay in those terms would represent a “holy sh*t what happened to your career?” situation. Also to any of us, including CSK with expertise in this area who have been around for a while, we know a non durable skill set when we see one. Not saying don’t study ML, but don’t be under any pretense that some home schooling on coursera is the bedrock you should be building a career on. This isn’t a knock on anybody, but simply a warning to skill up and make hay while the sun is shining.
i jsut spoke to 1 of my consulting buddies. he just got his wife preggers. anywho his co got bougght out a couple years ago. he is waiting to vest, in like a couple years. and his plan is to buya restaurant and be a stay at home dad. how nice! i too want to be a stay at home dad.
It’s very rare to find a high paying career path that only requires you to take a few classes and you’re set for life. Skilling up constantly is essential in ML. The more MooCs I took in ML, the more I found out about how much I didn’t know.
But if you’re not in the field and you’re interested your first thought should be how to get in, not the continuous skilling up you’ll need later on, otherwise you’ll just keep making excuses not to break in.
That’s not even remotely accurate though, it still amazes me how you seem to think what I’m talking about is that difficult. I managed to lay most of that groundwork in about 1.5 years with a demanding job and two young kids. It’s not easy, but it’s not like you’re endlessly toiling away on “pointless” math. From there, my grad work is starting and in a short period, boom, you have a nice discrete entry.
I have 2 Masters degrees (Engineering Physics and Financial Engineering ) and I can say I hardly use any of the specialized math and other skills i learned in each in my daily work vs the skills from MooCs. MooCs are far more superior to a new degree in terms of opportunity cost when it comes to keeping your skills sharp - yeah, a single MooC won’t make you set for life like you said but in the same time it takes you to get a Masters, you could be studying a ton of targetted online classes from the comfort of your home. (For this reason, an online Masters might be also be worth looking into esp if the curriculum is very targetted.)
The heart of the issue is that with two quantitative masters and the CFA you managed to underperform your way into a $40k role before getting fired indicating an aptitude issue. In a way its highlighting the point.
I think this explains the income differential because most I know in this field are making substantially more and they’ve all said the same thing. Anyhow, yes those are basically low threshold skills that get lower pay and will be the first to be automated. The fact that you’re not using that type of analytics is because of the level of role you’re in and those roles are not long for this earth. Too little expertise and skill set requirement. Been around long enough to easily spot that. Again, this is not just me (and the others with better quant backgrounds here) saying this, recruiters saying the same thing, I’ve talked to hiring managers in the industry, same thing, professors, same. The most impressive part is the amount of consistency in the feedback.
And you’re making my point as well: since these roles are not meant to last, you need to be constantly skilling up, which was the mistake I made earlier esp when pursuing those masters degrees. That path of getting degrees simply takes too long when it’s necessary to constantly skill up in today’s world; MooCs make you far more agile and able to learn quickly so you can jump on new opportunities.
Yeah, good point, good tech firms aren’t snapping up PhD’s and top tier masters students in favor of Coursera graduates. Must be why you’re making the big bucks! This reasoning is ridiculous. BTW, you weren’t fired from making $40k on two STEM masters and the CFA because the degrees were the problem.
I’ll let that speak for itself. You don’t need a PhD per se but that doesn’t replace learning and effort.
And since you seem to know so much about why I got fired from a 40K job 4 years ago and why that is a black mark that will be there forever maybe you could provide your insights on that since the employers I’ve had since then didn’t seem to make such a big deal out of it.
Yeah, the article sucks, an op ed, that rambles about depression and sexism in academia, then points to a few non PhD’s doing roles among which include blog editor. LMAO.
Anyhow, as usually your logic is degenerating and here again. You blamed the masters for your failure to perform (despite two of them!) and a CFA. The reality is you underperformed the rest of the job market (for any of those three factors) by several orders of magnitude which falls solely on your own aptitude. There’s no other way around it. As usual at this point, your lack of analytical reasoning is showing, which is why you’re deflecting to some non-point about employers since. My central point is your career trajectory now, combined with your background point to dramatic under performance, so I don’t get why you’re holding yourself out as an expert or doling out career advice so dogmatically. You’re not even performing on par with your new field and not using any substantial analytics in your race to get underpaid at what must be entry level roles. Nobody in any ML or data science role worth anything with two stem degrees and 4 years experience should be on here bragging about breaking into six figures and forcing their under-thought POV. So that’s my insight.
I challenge you to point out to where I was proclaiming to be outperforming others in my field or blaming my Masters for the lack of success. All I intended on saying is that I found a field that’s a better fit for me than Finance, at least in the beginning before I got into this rabbit hole. And how does lack of aptitude even come into play if I’ve gotten 2 masters but are undeperforming? (I’m more curious to see your point of view on this rather than to nitpick even further.) Clearly there’s something broken somewhere (not pointing any fingers to myself or elsewhere for now) if it’s even possible for someone to attain 2 masters in quantitative subjects but fail to earn the median US salary.
It’s clearly aptitude. In any field, you will find the people who can muddle along in academics but lack the aptitude to apply those skills and navigate a successful career / apply those skills in the real world. I mean the reality is the median pay for anyone with either of those degrees is much more than $40k. And getting fired just adds supporting data.
Anyhow, my points all stand from the prior post, you’re just not in a position to be doling out dogmatic career advice.
For me, I’d rather get median pay in a high paying field than struggle to get to the top in something that pays less on average. And just to point out, I was admitting to making a mistake when pursuing those Masters degrees, that’s hardly equal to blaming them for not having tge success I wanted. Disagree?