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Is data science an interesting field?
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Lucy’s Answer
The field of data science can be interesting because it is applicable across almost any industry you can think of: ecommerce, retail, pharmaceutical, finance, tech, healthcare, consulting and many more. Data science and other data related fields such as data engineering and machine learning engineering, are very high in demand. Data science can impact the business through discovery: gain insights and get understandings from large amounts of data.
Even though this field is moving towards AI and automation, there are a lot of complexities and noise in any type of results and industries will always need someone to analyze the results properly. For example, accounting skill sets and investment advising can be fully automated nowadays (i.e. account software and robo-advisers), but accountants and financial advisers are still very much needed.
To break into the field of data science, you will need strong technical skills, statistical knowledge, and analytical acumen. Some common college majors for people who become data scientists include but are not limited to: statistics, economics, applied mathematics, computer science, and other engineering majors. There are also a plethora of Master's programs specifically for Data Science, and related programs such as Business Analytics, Computer Science, Information Systems, etc.
It is possible to become a Data Scientist with a Bachelor's degree, however you will find that most job postings prefer a Master's degree or above.
Watch "A Day in the Life of a Data Scientist" videos on social media to get a sense of what the work life is like
Talk to companies hiring data scientists during career fairs
Try out a data scientist internship to see if the work seems interesting for you
Even though this field is moving towards AI and automation, there are a lot of complexities and noise in any type of results and industries will always need someone to analyze the results properly. For example, accounting skill sets and investment advising can be fully automated nowadays (i.e. account software and robo-advisers), but accountants and financial advisers are still very much needed.
To break into the field of data science, you will need strong technical skills, statistical knowledge, and analytical acumen. Some common college majors for people who become data scientists include but are not limited to: statistics, economics, applied mathematics, computer science, and other engineering majors. There are also a plethora of Master's programs specifically for Data Science, and related programs such as Business Analytics, Computer Science, Information Systems, etc.
It is possible to become a Data Scientist with a Bachelor's degree, however you will find that most job postings prefer a Master's degree or above.
Lucy recommends the following next steps:
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Anirban’s Answer
Yes, data science is cool and you can help society in a data and result-driven way.
Study hard
Apply and get data science job
Anirban recommends the following next steps:
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Yubing’s Answer
Yes, data science is a great area to get into, especially within the last 5 years.
There are 4 areas you may want to grow and develop overtime, including domain knowledge, statistics and Math, programming language, and communication/presentation skills.
There are 4 areas you may want to grow and develop overtime, including domain knowledge, statistics and Math, programming language, and communication/presentation skills.
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Susan’s Answer
Data Science can be a really interesting field. It is becoming more AI-driven so I can't guarantee what the job will be like in the future.
The first part of Data Science is finding and normalizing data to help find the answers to the questions you seek. Sometimes that can be tedious (as I found last night) when you have to clean data sets to take into account missing or malformed data. But you can get very interesting insights from working with data in a variety of different fields. If you want diversity you can switch fields - like processing medical data or business data where the underlying data science principals stay the same but you learn about a new context.
I started pivoting to data science by taking online classes from places like Coursera and Udacity that teach you the basics in data manipulation - maybe you can try auditing one of those and see if you like it.
The first part of Data Science is finding and normalizing data to help find the answers to the questions you seek. Sometimes that can be tedious (as I found last night) when you have to clean data sets to take into account missing or malformed data. But you can get very interesting insights from working with data in a variety of different fields. If you want diversity you can switch fields - like processing medical data or business data where the underlying data science principals stay the same but you learn about a new context.
Susan recommends the following next steps:
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Virgil’s Answer
I find Data Science to be a very interesting field. The role on a day to day basis can include building ETL's to Extract Transform and Load data, ensuring data integrity and accuracy, and cleaning data sets. Once you have clean and structured data, you can use that to build visualizations with tools such as Tableau, QLIK, and others to provide meaningful insights into the business. In short, a data scientist can take raw data and turn it into valuable insights that an organization needs to grow and compete.
If you like learning new things, and like solving complex puzzles, Data Science can provide you a fun and rewarding career. In this field, a person that enjoys research, mathematics, and coding can do very well in a career as a data scientist.
If you like learning new things, and like solving complex puzzles, Data Science can provide you a fun and rewarding career. In this field, a person that enjoys research, mathematics, and coding can do very well in a career as a data scientist.