Guide to Become a Data Scientist

Data science and data scientists are the terms you must be familiar with, but do you know how to become a data scientist? If not, then you have landed at the right place. Here, you will get to know amazing facts about becoming a data scientist. There is great hype in the market about this career. 

 

Data scientists play a vital role in the company and their work is to extract and manipulate data to enhance or align with a company’s overall expectations. So, if you are good with programming skills, mathematics, and a fondness for data then you have favourable opportunities of becoming a Data Scientist. Thus, before jumping into this booming career path read this blog to get the best tips for becoming a data scientist. 

 

This blog will help you in;

 

1. What is data science? 

2. Who are data scientists and what they do, 

3. Roles and responsibilities of data scientists 

4. Skills needed to become a data scientist, and

5. Steps to becoming a data scientist.

 

What is data science?

 

A very important and emerging concept in the modern world, data science refers to the discovery of many crucial facts and figures like usage, trends, consumer behaviour, retention, etc. This is all done by using programming, statistics, mathematics, and the machine learning process. 

 

For example, many companies are using data science in their respected industries to make AI better and more useful. Google is using the facts of data science to invent driver fewer cars. Shopping websites like Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, etc., use personal user data to suggest items according to their choice and needs. 

 

(Read also: 7 Ways Why Data Science is the Biggest Tool For Marketing)

 

The core point is that data science is being used nowadays to improve business and reduce costs. Now, if you are thinking about how data scientists can make shapeless data meaningful, then read further and you will get the answer.

 

Who are data scientists and what they do?

 

Putting raw data and some numbers into such a way that it can benefit an entire multi-billion organization is not an easy task. Data scientists are the people who undertake this responsibility. There is no clear definition of what or who a data scientist is. 

 

However, there is one thing said about them, “A data scientist is someone better at statistics than any software engineer and better at software engineering than any statistician.” This means that a person who is a data scientist has learned both software designing and statistics. 

 

(Related blog: Importance of Statistics in Data Science)

 

In short, we can say that the work of a data scientist normally includes making sense of randoms, shapeless data, from references like social media, feeds, smart devices, and emails that don’t neatly fit into a database. Therefore, data scientists support companies to work out nagging situations. 

 

(Recommended blog: Driving Digital Transformation with Data Science: What, How and Why?)

 

Roles and responsibilities of data scientists

 

The roles and responsibilities of a data scientist are huge and shift starting with one zone then onto the next to the point that one may get confused like what precisely does a data scientist do? Is it true that he is a mathematician or an analyst or a computer engineer? So, let's drive towards understanding the roles and responsibilities of a data scientist.

 

1. Their task is to gather, cleanse, transform, and clarify the structured and unshaped data from different references.

2. They have to observe and phrase data analytics based difficulties that can have a direct favorable influence on the corporation or the customers.

3. Also, data scientist jobs comprise storytelling abilities, significance that they should be able to understand their beliefs and notions to the stakeholders in a way that is acceptable to them.

4. Analyze the data models to specify structures and discover the explanations and chances for the corporation’s development and difficulties.

5. It is their responsibility to approve cost-effective modifications to existing methods and policies.

6. A data scientist can convey predictions and outcomes to administration and IT departments through beneficial data visualizations and reports.

 

(Also read: Data Science For IoT- How and Why?)

 

What are the skills needed to become a data scientist?

 

We all know that every career needs some skills according to the role. So, here we will glance at some of the skills needed to become a data scientist. Let's talk about it a little bit in detail.

 

• Mathematics

 

This point includes statistics, probability, and linear algebra and lets us make it clear that mathematics is the basic subject of data science. This is significant for data scientists because while working on data and building information items, we need to see the information and distinguish its surfaces and examples as for a numerical viewpoint.

 

If you need to break down and envision the organized type of the changed over information then you should have a good grip on statistics. Linear algebra is likewise a basic piece of examining data science, as this is one of the indispensable elements of machine learning. In this way, to learn data science, one should have to master these factors of mathematics. 

 

(Most related: 7 Major Branches of Discrete Mathematics)

 

 

• Machine Learning

 

How do robots work? Do computers have a brain? How do computers respond continuously? All these questions are interrelated and you must have thought of all these. So, behind all these procedures machine learning is the one that trains computers to memorize and expand by themselves by just feeding new data. 

 

In today's world self-driving cars, recruitment companies, and many more things are heavily dependent on machine learning. Data scientists must know machine learning as it assists them in making incredible systems that can make high-value forecasts and make conclusions in real-time.

 

 

• Programming

 

For prototyping little and brisk arrangements or fixing complicated data systems, the data scientists should know how to code. It encourages you in cleaning and coordinating unstructured information. The main programming dialects and advances which you should know or figure out how to dominate in this field are Python, R, SAS, Perl, SQL, and many more. 

 

Thus, if you need to have a good career in data science, then it is really important to have a solid hold on any of these programming dialects.

 

( Also read: SQL for data scientists Part 1)

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Skills of Data Scientist

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• Data skills

 

Data scientists need to access, control, and store data constantly. Information on relational data sets, for example, MySQL, as well as NoSQL databases such as MongoDB & Cassandra, are essential to do this successfully. (More to learn: Hadoop vs MongoDB: Which is better?)

 

 

• Big data

 

Next comes big data, which alludes to immense measures of information created from various sources at a monstrous rate. Now, this data cannot be dealt with by traditional database management systems like relational databases. 

 

Big data is a difficulty that can be tackled by tools like Spark and Hadoop. These are open-source bits of programming that are utilized in the preparation of sets of information and for the circulation of capacity related to big data.

 

 

Data munging and visualization

 

Data munging is characterized as the change of one data structure to another. This is done essentially on crude information to make it advantageous to comprehend and utilize. Data visualization can be thought of as the development and investigation of the visual portrayal of data science by methods for statistical designs, plots, and data illustrations. 

 

To pick up an important knowledge of sets of information for the improvement of the various areas and territories of a business, a cycle of masterminding information into data reports is presented and this is called data reporting.

 

What are the steps to become a data scientist?

 

Here are some of the steps which will help you intensify towards your goals.

 

1. Pursue an undergraduate degree in data science or even a similar field- The entry-level of becoming a data scientist is to have a bachelor's degree in data science or a computer-related field. Degrees moreover enhance layout, internships, networking, and acknowledged educational qualifications to your résumé. (Similar blog: Crash Course in Statistics)

 

2. Know the basic skills to become a data scientist- We have already mentioned above the skills needed to become a data scientist. So, it is important to have a good clasp over skills like mathematics, machine learning, big data, programming, and many more.

 

3. Specialization- Data scientists may spend significant time in a specific industry or create solid aptitudes in zones, for example, artificial learning, machine learning, or database administration. Specialization is an adequate method to build your acquiring potential and accomplish work that is significant to you.

 

4. Get your first entry-level data scientist job- After you get ready with all these skills and specialization, it's time to enter into the job role. The huge corporations are found often in search of freshers to fill in the vacant data science entry-level jobs. Thus, the data science jobs with the roles of junior data scientist and junior data analyst are the stuff you need to look out for.

 

5. Attain a master’s degree in data science- Is a master's degree important in data science jobs? So, the answer is, it relies on the job. However, a master's degree in any career is important, so the opportunities with higher education are extensively better as the hiring corporations often look for them. According to Burtch Works data from 2019, over 90% of data scientists carry a graduate degree. 

 

 

Conclusion

 

“There is a saying, ‘A jack of all trades and a master of none.’ When it comes to being a data scientist you need to be a bit like this, but perhaps a better saying would be, ‘A jack of all trades and a master of some.’”- Brendan Tierney, Principal Consultant at Oralytics

 

In the coming future, the demand for data scientists will be at its peak. A career in data science is very fascinating and gratifying as well. There are several windfalls of becoming a data scientist like it is a unique career choice where you get to learn lots of amazing things. However, we all know that the coin always has two parts and so in this case. There are some flaws like the technologies that you use will always improve and you have to make yourself flexible. 

 

You may find that the systems and software that you just mastered are abruptly old and before you know it, you have to memorize an entirely modern system. But, no matter what basis you gaze at, one aspect is to sure that these experts continue to earn vast earnings.