What is exactly Data Science and which stream should I take if I want to be a data scientist?

Question

Could someone tell me what exactly is Data Science and which stream should I take if I want to be a data scientist?

Answer 1

Data Science employs scientific, mathematical, and statistical methods and algorithms for gathering data from reliable sources to derive insights for better decision-making. This data then helps organizations decide the plan of action for bringing about improvement in certain aspects of operations and ultimately help them achieve their goals. 

Data Science has extensive applications in various sectors like logistics, healthcare, fraud detection, etc.

Here are some required skills that a Data Science practitioner is expected to have:

• Programming skills: Python or R

• Big Data Hadoop

• Machine Learning and AI

• Statistics

• Linear Algebra 

• SQL Database/Coding

• Apache Spark

• Multivariable Calculus 

• Data Visualization

• Communication 

You can see from the above list that Data Science demands versatility in various disciplines. You can go ahead and acquire skills either as a Computer Science student or a Mathematics student. But, I would say that the easier way is by taking up a Data Science course that covers the domain in a more holistic manner. There are courses available that include all the required subjects and modules of Data Science. 

• Data Exploration

• Data Manipulation

• Data Visualization

• Statistics

• Machine Learning

• Logistic Regression

• Decision Trees and Random Forest

• Unsupervised Learning

• Association Rule Mining

• Recommendation Engines

You can learn all of the above from Intellipaat’s Data Science online course. In the meantime, you can go through this tutorial to get you started: