[elliott34]

Doesn't really seem like the author spoke to a lot of actual physicists to write this article. Don't get me wrong, physics majors attract a certain type of intellect, but the vast majority of curriculum (quantum, EM, mechanics) are things THAT HAVE BARELY CHANGED IN THE PAST 50 YEARS. Meanwhile, CS majors come out much more prepared and hirable on the job market.

As far as the machine learning market goes, 90% of the projects require software engineering skills, the last 10% requires being able to go underneath the covers of linear algebra libraries, etc.

I just think the whole physics>cs degree for machine learning argument is not totally persuasive given my experience.

[woah]

They have to turn it into some kind of story with more excitement and conflict than "some people who are good at math are getting jobs as engineers".

[vitaminbandit]

How is the notion that "the vast majority of curriculum (quantum, EM, mechanics) are things THAT HAVE BARELY CHANGED IN THE PAST 50 YEARS" relevant to this discussion?

[elliott34]

Because the author draws a lot of parallels between computer science majors and physics majors, citing that physics majors are better prepared for the type of work ML requires. I am a physics major turned data scientist, and my argument is that I would have better prepared having been a CS major, given what the majority of my work requires. While in a CS major, a lot of data structures and algorithms haven't changed in 50 years either, you're much more likely to take electives with marketable skills or with up-to-date technologies (distributed systems, operating systems, OO/fp, databases, concurrency) that would've helped me in my day to day more than a math course or too did during my physics degree.