
Stanford Degrees in Statistics - wyldfire
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d_MNmIGY7yzrpnStnZqzzYUJc6znWUysfaVTKOvSQSk/edit?usp=sharing
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ktamura
I'm still amused/saddened by how little theoretical work you need to do at
Stanford to get a statistics BS (they call it Mathematical & Computational
Science). I get it: you don't need a rigorous foundation of math to be useful
as a workaday "data scientist". That said, university is probably the _last_
time you get to indulge/immerse yourself in deep, rigorous, mathematical
thinking. Not requiring students to take theoretical courses is such a pity.

In hindsight, I am glad that I studied math at Stanford (also I ended up doing
something completely different: marketing). It pushed me to think deeply and
patiently about a problem at length and taught me how to mix intuition with
analytic rigor.

I believe it was Paul Graham who said that math was one of the better subjects
to pursue in school because it's one of the most difficult. I kind of agree
with pg on this one: I was nowhere near the top of my math classes, but
whenever I took theoretical CS or stats classes, I found them shockingly easy
and did well with much less effort.

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HiroshiSan
I'm currently doing my undergrad in math at a Canadian University, I'm
interested in pursuing graduate school at Stanford in the future and would
love to talk to you more about your experience and what they would expect, let
me know if there's anyway I could contact you.

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imakecomments
Not him but in general you need tier 1 publications, recommendation letters, a
strong statement of purpose (very clear idea of what you want to do research
in) and faculty fit. GRE scores are generally used as a filter. They won't get
you in, but they will keep you out.

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cheetos
Forgive my ignorance, but how many undergrads have actually published a paper?
I'm not saying it's impossible, but I was under the impression that this is
something that happens once you get in to grad school, not before.

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metaphor
More than you might think, especially at tier 1 universities with funded
undergraduate research opportunities[1]. You don't have to be first author to
be published.

[1]
[https://members.cur.org/members_online/members/directory_lis...](https://members.cur.org/members_online/members/directory_list.asp)

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akhilcacharya
How helpful is just being named on the paper? I've been working on a project
for a year that just had its submission, not sure if I should try for good
grad schools though or just target industry (Big4+Unicorn) instead.

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tehlike
Grad school, if your ultimate goal is not academia, will most likely be an
irresponsible use of your time.

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metaphor
Care to qualify that?

Surely any irresponsible use of time is a personal deficit, not a graduate
curricula's.

From a complexity barrier perspective, consider a career in ASIC design.

From a market saturation perspective, consider a career in any discipline of
psychology.

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tehlike
I am taking the simplistic view, and looking at the numbers from very
simplistic view. Depending on what you expect out of Phd, advancing your
knowledge might mean worlds to someone, but you could learn much more
practical experience in those 5 years. It's up to someone's opinion.

Let me rephrase and probably further restrict what i mean: \- If you want to
work in big four(which was my assumption from Big4+Unicorn piece), you are
better of not doing PHD in terms of progress careerwise. here is the
reasoning, using some numbers i have seen around: \- Big 4 usually let's you
start Level N straight out of school. If you do PHD, they let you start Level
N+1. Master's doesn't change anything, you still start Level N. \- Phd takes
(approximately) 5 years. \- Promotions take 1-2 years, depending on your
ambitions, your manager etc. Assume 1.5 years. \- With the above numbers,
instead of 5 years in PHD and start at LN+1, you could easily get to LN+3. If
you are ambitious, you could get at least one promo in 1 year, which would put
you in 1 year into LN+3, making you close to LN+4.

In all these 5 years, you'll also be banking stock refreshers, people would
get to know you well, you could build reputation, and you would have a good
chunk of money in the bank.

If you are targeting starting your own company, depending on what it is, phd
might help (taking phd topic and making a company out of it is common).
However, I believe, you could do much more in those 5 years, and you wouldn't
have to go through emotional ride of graduate school as an extra stress.

Again, it all depends on what you want with phd. if your goal is working for
FANG, 5 years of your youth is worth more than a phd.

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tbatchelli
This is very helpful to me, and I bet to many that want to get into Data
Science the right way. A big "thank you" to whoever put this together.

What are we looking here for someone that wants to learn all this while
keeping a full-time job? 3 years?

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b_emery
A class per 10-12 weeks is a reasonable pace with a full time job. I did a lot
of my course work prior to enrolling in graduate school this way. There were a
lot of late nights powered by chocolate chip ice cream and the light of my
monitor, followed by not-very-productive days at work. Being enrolled helped -
in my case through an extension program. Sometimes you need other people to
explain things, and sometimes you need to have something to lose - just to
keep you going.

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laichzeit0
The fact that you complete it says more about your character than the courses
you did. Not everyone has the determination to _finish_ things. I applaud you.

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b_emery
Thanks! The classes are done. Hope to finish the PhD within the year.

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sharmi
What do the units specified against each course signify? They do not seem to
map to the syllabus.

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digitalzombie
[https://statistics.stanford.edu/academics/ms-
statistics](https://statistics.stanford.edu/academics/ms-statistics)

> The Department requires that the student take 45 units of work from
> offerings in the Department of Statistics or from authorized courses in
> other departments. Of these 45 units, eight statistics courses from the list
> of required courses must be taken for a letter grade.

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sharmi
Thanks for the input!

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curiousgal
And yet some people still refer to modern day statisticians as "not data
scientists"

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rohkes
Thanks for this, but is there any way I can download the spreadsheet.

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nlativy
Change 'htmlview' to 'view' in the URL to get the full docs UI and then 'File
-> Download as'.

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spiritusmundi
Huge thank you!

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vecter
Hi and welcome to Hacker News! No need to leave a comment saying thank you, an
upvote is more than sufficient :)

In general, unless you have something meaningful to add to the conversation,
it's best to refrain from making comments (even if you're comment is a
positive cordial one such as the one you posted).

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joelbondurant
Statistics = Science - Mathematics - Science

