CRUNCHING NUMBERS & ANALYSING DATA: HOW TO BECOME A DATA SCIENTIST

There are many reasons which make the career of a data scientist worth it. Each analysis can be unique. You will always arrive at the right solution empirically. The field gives you a lot of space to explore and analyse without interference

- Sonya Hooja

Data is the new oil. While there is a huge amount of data being generated across industries and applications, the hard part is manipulating and making sense of it. Every organization needs someone to analyse this data, to be able to make better decisions—and this is where a data scientist comes into the picture. According to the Harvard Business Review, being a data scientist is the sexiest job of the 21st century. Others can vouch for how it is a lucrative and intellectually fulfilling career. Insights from Burning Glass indicate that in the next 10 years, the positions for data scientists are expected to grow by as much as 19%. But who should become a data scientist and how?

About 40% of core data scientist profiles require an advanced degree. There are various online courses available today. A course in data science will allow a person to gain in-depth knowledge about the most modern skills and technologies that data scientists use such as Tableau, Hadoop, R, SAS, Python, and Machine Learning. A data scientist must have hard skills such as analysis, ML, statistics, and Hadoop apart from possessing critical thinking and persuasive communications skills. They should have strong industry knowledge and also be adept at problem-solving and contextual understanding to overcome various business challenges. Students and professionals from STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) background are generally best suited for data science jobs. However, there are a few roles that professionals from other domains also can break into such as Data Translator, conversational UI (user interface) Scriptwriters and market researchers.