I mean, as a graduate student, it was definitely incredibly useful. As a practicing data scientist, I’d have to say that it’s also incredibly useful.

I’ve used this stuff, and more often, the ideas taught, to break down a problem into a tackle-able set of pieces more times than I can count.

Never underestimate the fundamentals. Too many of my colleagues use models without actually understanding any of it. I’ve debugged so many problems by looking at the technical details in original papers and textbooks.