When it comes to dealing with the high-tech world of today, there is no more important a job than data scientist. Anybody that embarks on such a career opens themselves up to having to face a plethora of questions from business owners to government officials who want to know how ‘big data’ can benefit them and their organizations.
To know how to answer these questions, as well as how to create new algorithms, data scientists have to go through rigorous amounts of training — to see just what this training entails, read on.
Decide… are you a good candidate?
The profession of a data scientist is tough, and it is certainly not made for everybody. For this reason, before you embark on your journey to becoming one, you have to decide whether you are a good enough candidate for such a role.
First, you must ask yourself if your nature is curious enough to constantly push yourself to pursue more learning, as data scientists never stop learning. You also need to be very organized and incredibly astute when it comes to sorting out the data that you obtain, as losing even one point in a million of different points has the potential to break a project. Also, a degree of stubbornness and a willingness to never give up on a challenge are traits that all data scientists should have because this a profession that brings about more frustration than it does fruition.
Get the education and the degrees
You cannot become a data scientist without an education behind you and the degrees hanging on your wall to prove that you’ve got it.
To begin with, you should be taking a bachelor’s degree in either IT, computer science, physics, or math. By doing so, you will be able to get to grips with the technology and calculus knowledge that all data scientists need as their foundation.
Obtaining such a degree will not see you come to the end of your educational journey, though, as you still need to be taking and obtaining a master’s degree, such as the Merrimack data science degree. Doing so will sharpen your problem-solving skills and give you the tools needed to tackle any analytical methods that you come across going forward, and it’ll give you the stamp of approval needed to entice future employers towards hiring you.
Pick your specialization
Every kind of business and organization needs a data scientist working for them, meaning you have a plethora of specializations to choose from when you come to pick your own. At this point, you have to study your own experiences, and you have to pinpoint the area that you feel most comfortable researching and analyzing.