Views on Goldsmiths online data science Msc

[Nojobforoldmums]

Hi,

I have seen lots of wisdom on here about datascience so hoped to pick some brains.

I am being made redundant following on from maternity leave, and am considering a career break with part time study for a year or so until my youngest is that little bit older and nursery less stressful. I would put him in nursery 2/3 days a week to enable study, but hopefully pick ups and drop offs won't be so time critical.

I am/was a very well paid professional in a field where datascience and business analytics are of increasing relevance. I have a maths/programming background and completed some datascience MOOCS while on maternity leave.

I am attracted to the goldsmiths course due to its modular nature and lack of lead time needed in signing up. I could for example stop at a pgcert or maybe continue with later modules to a full masters when I am back in work.

Does anyone have an opinion on whether this course is any good? Any alternate recommendations, and whether formal study is looked upon more favourably than MOOCs? Also is my career break idea sane, would a gap make it too difficult to get back into very well paid employment?

Thanks in advance

DH said to me that even if you don’t have the 1-2 years experience - apply anywAy. You can also look at jobs that have ‘junior’ or ‘graduate’ data scientist/software/developer. Good luck!

Oh yeah, chances are you will get accepted.

But I meant what I said about R stats. It annoys the hell out of me that they bring it into postgraduate courses. Why? It's coding. It's ridiculously hard and there are much easier ways to achieve the stat results you need.

Doctors on my course told me they never, ever use R because it's too hard and as I said, there are other more user friendly programmes that give you exactly the same results.

Some will let it slide and let you use spss but if using R is a module, be damn sure you can suss it out.

Ignore me, I see you have already started!

Hello @BrizzleWest I appreciate this thread is quite old but can I ask you how you did get on with the msc in Data Science at Goldsmiths? I have received an offer from Goldsmiths as well as Hull (online Master in AI). I am a very mature student (nearly 20year in software engineering). I would like to use the master to help me pivot career towards data where I have already some experience.

Hello @minny80 I'm still going with the masters. About 3/4 of the way through. I have an exam tomorrow morning for it that I'm busy revising for but will come back tomorrow. Most people on the Masters are 30+ I would say (I'm in my forties). The oldest (that I know of) is 74!

Thank you @BrizzleWest , best of luck for the exam tomorrow!🍀

Thank you. There was another post on here about the MSc where I wrote about my experiences. I can't find it just now though to point you to it (perhaps I had a different user name)

oh duh. Sorry. It was page one of this post!!

I was wondering if your experience on the master has improved in the last couple of years, as in your previous post you mentioned mixed feelings because of admin issues. I was also wondering if you feel the program has a good balance of theory and application when relevant. Is the program up to date with the latest trends in Data Science/AI?

I am between jobs atm so I was wondering if it is sensible to start 3/4 modules between April and September. How many modules you think someone can realistically fit with about 20 hours study during the week (ie. alongside a full time 9 to 5 job)?

Hello @minny80 . The masters is offered by the University of London but the materials are produced by Goldsmiths. The module leaders are all from Goldsmiths but the online teaching environment is provided by UoL, the tutors are hired by them and admin is also done by UoL. It is UoL who can be a bit slow on the admin side of things. Students report that they can be very slow to get back to them when they submit queries. That said, I've never actually had to submit a query to UoL so hasn't caused me a problem. Something that is frustrating (and a regular complaint amongst students) is how slow they are to get marks back to you for courseworks or exams and the written feedback on courseworks is very minimal indeed. We keep complaining to the module leaders about this. Some have expressed surprise and believe that we are being given written feedback. It seems like the problem might be that the online system simply isn't showing us the feedback. We keep raising the issue so potentially things might improve in the future.

The teaching materials are all online and consist of recorded mini-lectures, quizes, exercises and recommended reading. Some students seem to just do the minimum (i.e. watch the lectures) to get the qualification. Others, like me, want to learn as much as possible and do all of the extra reading. They recommend about 7 hours a week per module which I would say is about right for me. So if you have 20 hours a week then three modules should be achievable if you engage with all of the materials.

Each module lasts 22 weeks and they start in either April or October. They don't give any holidays during the 22 weeks which means that teaching continues over Christmas for the October modules. All of the modules that I have done have had a coursework (due in the middle of the module) and then either a second coursework or an exam at the end. Bear in mind that if you are doing several modules then you will have several courseworks due in on the same day. You pay for modules as you do them so you have the option to start but not do the full masters (its possible to get a certificate qualification after doing 4 modules - they are specific about what some of those modules should be though).

I work in a completely different field which leaves me feeling like I don't really know what I don't know. So hard for me to judge the course content. They don't really include much on the 'data engineering' side of things. A few students have criticised the course for not being up to date though. That said, it's such a changing field that I wonder if any course could be truly up to date. Most modules are a mix of theory and practical. Coding is done in Python (apart from one optional module which covers R).

Things I like about the course are the ability to study at times covenient to you and do as many or few modules each time as you choose. I also like the fact that most students seem to be 30+ and most are juggling study with work and/or raising a family. I'd probably feel a bit daft now if it was just me and lots of 22 year olds. The student community is great. Plently of people work in related fields already and have given me lots of helpful advice.

My main beef with the course would be the slowness/lack of feedback. I'm still glad I did it. Many Data Science masters require a degree with a substantial amount of maths or computing which I don't have so I may have struggled to get accepted.

Sorry this is so long! Happy to try and answer any other questions you might have

Thank you so much @BrizzleWest! I have been spending the last several weeks checking out online Master DS programs, so I am not surprised there is room for improvement. The program seem solid though and customisable, and student community definitely a plus considering the course is online.