Degree: Food Technology or Data Analytics

[Mercent]

Dear friends, I have been thinking of going back to University for a 2nd degree. I studied Philosophy for my first degree, and the only job i am fit for is a deadend administrative position. I am sufficiently apt at it, but it is soul crushing, and i felt myself wasting away. I am sill young enough to change the course of my life, so it is now or never.

I am offered to study either Food Science & Technology or a Data Anaylsis major in InfoCom, and i am wondering if anyone on this forum is working in a related field (i think many of you are Python wranglers)? Do you find satisfaction in your job as an INTP? What challenges do you face?

I would appreciate any and all input.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

What sort of courses does the data analysis one contain?

 

[Mercent]

What sort of courses does the data analysis one contain?

It has a heavy focus on Business Analytics, some Predictive Modeling, Python, SAS programing, stat methods and some business laws. I should say it is less InfoCom, more business oriented.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I don't know too much about business intelligence, but I understand it to involve using machine-learning and similar techniques for optimizing businesses. Doing prediction on customer behavior, sales, costs, optimizing services etc. It's obviously quite specialized, and I imagine it is aimed at applying existing tools and techniques rather than creatively coming up with new solutions to deep problems (although I might be completely wrong in this). But the good thing is that you're guaranteed to get a job with this, as data analysis is proliferating into all conceivable branches of business nowadays. There is a high demand for people with this type of knowledge atm.

My specialty is more along the lines of computer science than data analysis, but nevertheless I have headhunters suggesting me a lot of these business-intelligence jobs and similar stuff. I've seen all kinds of businesses having these sort of openings, from banks, to online casinos, to bakeries (they wanted to optimize the amount of bread to bake each day). So the options are many, but once again I don't really know how the actual work is.

 

[Mercent]

Appreciate your reply Serac. One of the main reasons why i placed Data Analytics as one of my top choices is because of the employability and the company i worked in has a demand for analysts. Since i have some programming experience back in my secondary school days, and i am comfortable with statistics, i was thinking that Data Analytics might be a good choice. But I do not feel the same passion for it as i do for Food Tech though.

 

[Pyropyro]

Not a food tech myself so I read some stuff about it.

If you're going for the food tech path then it's better to go work at a major food company or a food-related government agency. It's not that hot in the academe though since you'll be tangling with old professors.

Anyways, do you like nutrition, chemistry and biochemistry? It seems that you need to be good at these fields to succeed in this career path. You might also need to get Master's and Phd's to be more competitive.

 

[Mercent]

Anyways, do you like nutrition, chemistry and biochemistry? It seems that you need to be good at these fields to succeed in this career path. You might also need to get Master's and Phd's to be more competitive.

Thanks for your reply Pyropyro, i am reasonably good in Chemistry back in Secondary but during my High School years, my Chemistry grades are only acceptable. Yes indeed, Food Tech would be a Chemistry heavy course, with fair amount of stats (which i am comfortable with), some Biology (which i love) and some Physics (which i don't care much for). Food Tech happens to be a growing industry where i live, and the government is pushing for growth in this area, and there is a constant lack of talents. I would consider a part time MBA if after graduating from Food Tech, if this is the path i am going down.

BTW, i noticed your Bernard Shaw's quote: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw"

As much as i enjoyed his Unsocial Socialist, i couldn't help but point out the logical fallacy in what he said.
a. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: If x is reasonable man, ~ (x changes world).
b. the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself: If x is unreasonable man, x persists in changing world
c. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man: If world changes, unreasonable man x is present. (i.e. unreasonable man x is Necessary Condition for world's changing, or in Shaw's words, world's changing depend on unreasonable man).

First, Shaw gave a false dichotomy: there is either reasonable man, or unreasonable man. Then, Shaw concluded 'c' from 'b'. It is a logical fallacy called Affirmation the Consequent. In general terms: "If A, then B. Given B. Thus A." is a fallacy; it is because some other factor C results in A. If x is unreasonable man, x persists in changing world, and then given the world changes, x the unreasonable man must be present; this is false because some other y person (neither reasonable nor unreasonable) could be the one who changes the world, so the world's changing does not require the pre-condition of unreasonable man. If I killed Kennedy, then Kennedy is dead. Kennedy is dead. Thus I killed Kennedy. FBI must have gotten the wrong guy then.

Sorry for the sidetrack, but i just could not help myself.

 

[Kuu]

Data analytics is a huge field right now, lots of money to be made. But I don't know if it will vastly self-obsoletize with the growth of AI in the coming years. Kinda a though spot, you'd have to super-specialize...

 

[Pyropyro]

Thanks for your reply Pyropyro, i am reasonably good in Chemistry back in Secondary but during my High School years, my Chemistry grades are only acceptable. Yes indeed, Food Tech would be a Chemistry heavy course, with fair amount of stats (which i am comfortable with), some Biology (which i love) and some Physics (which i don't care much for). Food Tech happens to be a growing industry where i live, and the government is pushing for growth in this area, and there is a constant lack of talents. I would consider a part time MBA if after graduating from Food Tech, if this is the path i am going down.

BTW, i noticed your Bernard Shaw's quote: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw"

As much as i enjoyed his Unsocial Socialist, i couldn't help but point out the logical fallacy in what he said.
a. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: If x is reasonable man, ~ (x changes world).
b. the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself: If x is unreasonable man, x persists in changing world
c. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man: If world changes, unreasonable man x is present. (i.e. unreasonable man x is Necessary Condition for world's changing, or in Shaw's words, world's changing depend on unreasonable man).

First, Shaw gave a false dichotomy: there is either reasonable man, or unreasonable man. Then, Shaw concluded 'c' from 'b'. It is a logical fallacy called Affirmation the Consequent. In general terms: "If A, then B. Given B. Thus A." is a fallacy; it is because some other factor C results in A. If x is unreasonable man, x persists in changing world, and then given the world changes, x the unreasonable man must be present; this is false because some other y person (neither reasonable nor unreasonable) could be the one who changes the world, so the world's changing does not require the pre-condition of unreasonable man. If I killed Kennedy, then Kennedy is dead. Kennedy is dead. Thus I killed Kennedy. FBI must have gotten the wrong guy then.

Sorry for the sidetrack, but i just could not help myself.

Hey, I hope you land a sweet job in your career choice. Physics was problematic to me as well, not because it's hard but because the professors were freaking boring. I did appreciate it more when I was older though. It's just one step away from math helped.

No probs on the quote

 

[sushi]

heads or tails.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

Data analytics is a huge field right now, lots of money to be made. But I don't know if it will vastly self-obsoletize with the growth of AI in the coming years. Kinda a though spot, you'd have to super-specialize...

So you imagine that in a few years, we're gonna have machines writing code, partaking in business meetings, discussing how to improve businesses etc? Perhaps these machines will sip on espressos after lunch, and chat about their weekend with their coworkers too?

 

[Mercent]

Data analytics is a huge field right now, lots of money to be made. But I don't know if it will vastly self-obsoletize with the growth of AI in the coming years. Kinda a though spot, you'd have to super-specialize...

Interesting take Kuu. I reckon that would perhaps happen after ou generation bites the dust, but if not, i suppose AIs would would always need a human overseer to validate its statistical conclusions..

heads or tails.

What if it lands on its side?

 

[Kuu]

So you imagine that in a few years, we're gonna have machines writing code, partaking in business meetings, discussing how to improve businesses etc? Perhaps these machines will sip on espressos after lunch, and chat about their weekend with their coworkers too?

Yes, yes, yes. Doubtful about the espressos though.

 

[Helvete]

I would be wary of the direction food tech may take you. I have no background or experience with it but to me the whole industry seems a little fabricated, for instance pushing the need for gmo foods where big companies will have a huge stake and studies showing adverse health effects. Or the bias in such studies like many studies won't get much funding and only the ones showing favourable results see the light of day.

There's also the whole low fat diet thing that everyone has been taught that they should follow and ever since there's been a huge rise in health problems. Here's a good article about it. These are things that would be better solved with education rather than widespread disinformation (whether intentional or not) and the approach of using medication or more advanced diets to solve these additional problems.

On the other hand, hopefully once everyone becomes re educated, there will be a lot of new work with the tech of producing the food that we need in a sustainable manner.

So I guess, for whichever course you decide on, work out where they can take you and if these are things you would actually like to do. I don't mean figuring out preciously which job you want as from my understanding people usually get slightly sidetracked and end up doing something slightly different lol but at least knowing you won't finish up working for a company with morally questionable ethics.

 

[Chris11]

Dear friends, I have been thinking of going back to University for a 2nd degree. I studied Philosophy for my first degree, and the only job i am fit for is a deadend administrative position. I am sufficiently apt at it, but it is soul crushing, and i felt myself wasting away. I am sill young enough to change the course of my life, so it is now or never.

I am offered to study either Food Science & Technology or a Data Anaylsis major in InfoCom, and i am wondering if anyone on this forum is working in a related field (i think many of you are Python wranglers)? Do you find satisfaction in your job as an INTP? What challenges do you face?

I would appreciate any and all input.

Comrade,

Personally, I would recommend data, but I am biased. I am biased because I am a PhD student in math and there are some connections with topology that are quite powerful. These connections may even be exploitable to pull in more of the math I love into an area absolutely exploding with jobs.

A better explanation for my suggestion is that I imagine that much of a Food Sciences program would be simple memorization. It may sound cliche to bash on biologists and what not, but the truth really is that the bulk of the work you will do in those courses focus upon memorization to the detriment of critical thinking. This is not without value but if your main source of hedonistic pleasure in education is problem-solving, biology (and also medicine actually, with few exceptions even at the postgraduate level) is not the place to be.