In a highly digitised world where artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and superfast networks such as 5G are the cornerstones, data is the fuel that drives them all. Any company, institution, or organisation generates a massive amount of data that needs to be stored and analysed. Data science is what these companies and industries need to make sense of the data and turn it into actionable information. In 2012, data science was just blooming into existence in AI-oriented startups. In just a decade, it has become quite an established field, especially since analytics are now the ultimate windows of opportunity.
In short, data science helps any organisation extract valuable insights and knowledge from large data sets. As a result, there has been a significant rise in its popularity over the years as companies have started implementing data science techniques to grow their businesses and increase customer satisfaction.
What exactly does data science do?
Data science has found its application in almost every industry. Banks, insurance companies, retailers, healthcare providers, and government agencies have substantial data science groups. You’ll find below a glance at ways in which data science helps those industries.
- Improves decision-making by providing insights into customer behaviour, market trends, and other critical business metrics.
- Provides personalised customer experiences using their data preferences to understand their needs better.
- Optimises business processes by identifying inefficiencies and areas that it can improve.
- Detects fraud and other security threats by analysing patterns in data over time.
- Improves healthcare by using data to develop personalised treatment plans and identify potential pandemics.
- Utilise strategies to transform data into valuable or profitable information in tech businesses.
- Structures and organises seemingly unstructured and unconnected data that could potentially gain competitive advantage and allow predictions for any company’s growth.
- Helps create video and computer games, taking the gaming experience to the next level.
Academic courses that help you build a career in data science
Now that we’ve established the importance of data science let’s consider the roadmap to building a career out of it. How do you become a data scientist? What kind of academic background does it require?
These are a few of the many questions you might be wondering about at this point. To clear your doubts, we have listed some courses that will pave your path to being a data scientist.
1. Computer science
Since data science involves working with large amounts of data, having a computer science degree is essential. It is important to know programming, data structures, algorithms, and databases, which are components of a computer science course.
2. Statistics
Statistics are at the core of data science. Therefore, a strong foundation in this field is vital because data science involves working on statistical analysis and modelling of data. Courses on statistics cover probability, statistical inference, regression analysis, and machine learning.
3. Domain expertise
This background enables you to develop a deep understanding of the domain you want to work in, apart from computer science and statistics. Courses in finance, biology, psychology, and any other field where data is collected and analysed will significantly help.
4. Data visualisation
Effectively communicating findings and insights from data is an essential skill for data scientists. Courses in data visualisation can help students learn this through the knowledge of graphs, charts, and other visualisation methods.
5. Data wrangling
Data scientists often work with heavily unstructured and messy amounts of data that require organisation before analysis begins. Courses in data wrangling can teach students how to effectively manipulate and prepare data for analysis.
6. Machine learning
Machine learning is the backbone of data science. Courses in this area can teach students how to build and apply machine learning models to data.
7. Data ethics
As data science becomes more prevalent, data scientists must consider the ethical implications of their work. Courses in data ethics help students understand the ethical considerations involved in working with data and teach them how to apply principles in their work.
Academic courses aside, there is a skill set that comes in handy for a data scientist. After all, it does take knowledge and technique to master the subject.
Skills required for a data scientist
Like any other professional, a data scientist must have certain skills apart from academic degrees and qualifications. Strong programming is the first and foremost skill, particularly in languages like Python and R. A familiarity with databases and SQL is also required, in addition to well-honed knowledge of big data technologies like Hadoop and Spark. Of course, no one can ignore the relevance of cloud computing skills, such as in AWS and Azure. To round it all off, having great interpersonal skills like communicating and problem-solving is mandatory to deal with any complex situation.
Data science is all about analysing, visualising, extracting, managing, and storing data to create meaningful insights from analytics. Data scientists put a lot of effort into sifting through mountains of data to find relevant information and identify patterns that one can utilise to pinpoint future goals and objectives. In a world where data is the new oil, data science matters, and data scientists are becoming more significant than ever.
