Ramanathan said his Ph.D taught him to value skepticism and verification. Courtesy of Anand Ramanathan Anand Ramanthan ignored advice to major in computer science, and instead studied physics to Ph.D level. He pivoted to data science and said the skills he gained during his Ph.D serve him in Big Tech. But it can be hard to explain how Ph.D skills translate to a corporate job, Ramanathan said. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Anand Ramanathan, who works at Meta and lives in New Jersey. The following has been edited for length and clarity. When I was choosing my undergraduate degree in the early 2000s, people told me to pick computer science, the hot field of the time. Instead, I studied physics, all the way to getting my Ph.D in 2011, because I really enjoyed it. In 2012, after working at NASA for roughly a year, I was thinking about what was next, and I looked into fields like defense contracting.…