Overview for Gentzel

In response to comment by entirelyuseless on An update on Signal Data Science (an intensive data science training program)

Comment author: ChristianKl 10 April 2016 09:24:06AM 1 point [-]

Similarly, it was somewhat unpleasant to have the program taking place in the same house where many of the participants were living.

What was the problem with that decision?

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In response to comment by ChristianKl on An update on Signal Data Science (an intensive data science training program)

Comment author: Gentzel 10 April 2016 10:10:07AM * 5 points [-]

At times the signal house was densely populated and a bunch of people got sick. These problems went away over time as some moved out, and we standardized better health practices (hand sanitizer freely available, people spreading out or working from their rooms if sick, etc).

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In response to An update on Signal Data Science (an intensive data science training program)

Comment author: Fluttershy 09 April 2016 10:33:36AM 8 points [-]

Avoid this program.

Jonah and Robert have good intentions, and I was actually happy with the weekly interview sessions taught by Robert. However, I had a poor experience with this program overall. I'll list some observations from my experience as a member of the first cohort below.

First, this program is effectively self-directed; most of the time, neither the TA nor the instructor were available. When they were, asking them questions was incredibly difficult due to their lack of familiarity with the material they were supposed to be teaching. To be sure, both the instructor and the TA were intelligent people--the problem was just that they knew lots of math, but not very much data science.

Second, there were lots of communication issues between the instructors and the students. I really do not want to give specific examples, since I don't want to say something that would reflect so poorly on the LessWrong community. However, I assure you that this was an incredibly large issue.

Lastly, everything about this program was disorganized. Several of us paid for housing through the program, which ended up not being available as soon as we'd been told that it would be. The furniture in the office space we used was set up by participants because Signal was too disorganized to have it set up before we were supposed to start using it. The fact that only two out of twelve students pair programmed together on an average day was also due to a lack of organization of the part of the instructors.

Jonah and Robert clearly worked very hard to make this program what it was, but attending was still a bad experience for me. If you already have a background in software engineering and want to pay $8,000 to teach yourself data science alongside other students who are doing the same, this program is a good fit for you. Otherwise, consider attending a longer, more established program, like Zipfian Academy that actually uses pair programming and has instructors available to answer questions.

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In response to comment by Fluttershy on An update on Signal Data Science (an intensive data science training program)

Comment author: Gentzel 09 April 2016 09:56:08PM 6 points [-]

I think it is better to assess personal fit for the bootcamp. There are a lot of advantages I think you can get from the program that would be difficult to acquire quickly on your own.

Aside from lectures, a lot of the program was self study, including a lot of my most productive time at the bootcamp, but there was normally the option to get help, and it was this help, advice, and strategy that I think made the program far more productive than what I would have done on my own, or in another bootcamp for that matter (I am under the impression longer bootcamps may develop specific skills at using the software better, but they don't convey nearly the same level of conceptual understanding of statistics in data science, and likewise there are many types of mistakes graduates of other programs will make that graduates of Signal's cohort have been taught not to). When there was not the option to get help, I usually shifted my work schedule and it wasn't much of a problem: there are so many projects to work on, that there was almost always something productive to work on where I wouldn't get stuck (optional exercises on prior projects or making prior projects better). I can see this being very frustrating for some people though, as getting stuck and not having immediate feedback interrupts flow.

Many of the organizational problems didn't seem to really be problems, and seemed more like differences which are good for some and not for others. Pair programming was not always optimal due to the large degree of differences between students. It wouldn't have made sense for everyone to pair program since it would have been holding back some of the faster students. A more rigid structure would have helped people who were less naturally self directed/focused though. Organizational problems that happened with respect to the first cohort in terms of setting up (furniture, internet, whiteboards, etc.) are unlikely to be problems for future cohorts now that the instructors have learned from experience and have a place set up. The first cohort took the risks and costs of such things, which later cohorts probably won't have to worry about.

This is not like other bootcamps, it is less expensive, more individually focused rather than having the entire group doing all the same curriculum, and there are a bunch of rationalists iteratively helping you decide which jobs are best to apply to, who can network you into what position, and which skills actually matter most for aiming for the specific jobs you are aimed at. I don't expect you to be able to have the same opportunities at a normal bootcamp, but a normal bootcamp is probably also lower risk if you don't trust yourself to make things work out (other programs may have quizzes where they throw you out if you fail, and essentially force you to remain focused, with Signal you are more in control yourself, and can take time off to apply to jobs.