> My experience in recruiting data scientists is that candidates that have formal degrees in data science generally have little experience outside of school. My assumption is that these degree programs are relatively new.
A friend (also a physicist, though harder-core) who is a now a data scientist opined to me that the current wave of cross-trained data scientists will be replaced by "kids with their new data science degrees from new data science programs". He didn't mean this ill, but simply thought there was a window of time to make a shift.
Your comment implies you are actually seeing relevant benefit from people with more diverse experience. Can you elaborate? Do you mean lots of hands-on data science per se, or simply a broader practical experience?
Sorry for the delayed response, hopefully you check back. :)
My experience with hiring is limited, I've only hired 3 data scientists. One had a bachelors in physics and masters in data science. One had a masters in data science (i forget her bachelors degree) and one was a PhD nuclear engineer.
I think the main difference was "broader practical experience" as you said. That' was mainly my point. Although my sample size is small, I was just making the point that the degree programs are so new that graduates can't have much real work experience. Obviously if someone returns to school after years in industry and gets a MS in data science then they could have work experience as well.
A friend (also a physicist, though harder-core) who is a now a data scientist opined to me that the current wave of cross-trained data scientists will be replaced by "kids with their new data science degrees from new data science programs". He didn't mean this ill, but simply thought there was a window of time to make a shift.
Your comment implies you are actually seeing relevant benefit from people with more diverse experience. Can you elaborate? Do you mean lots of hands-on data science per se, or simply a broader practical experience?
Edited: for formatting