New Delhi, 04 March 2021: Companies worldwide are now collecting and analyzing their customer data for improving their customer experience and providing better service. Thanks to the technological advancement in the field of data science, we can now gather a large amount of data using non-traditional software and data processing methods. But, there is a wide supply-demand gap for data science professionals. This means that there are a multitude of opportunities with not enough qualified candidates. With the right data science certification, you can take advantage of these opportunities.
Becoming a Data Scientist
Data science is a field that involves analyzing the gathered data for extracting knowledge. There is a huge demand for professionals capable of turning data analysis into something that can help organizations get a competitive advantage. If you plan to work as a data scientist, you must have the knowledge and skills of creating data-driven business solutions.
Some of the biggest companies in the world use data science extensively like Netflix. It measures user retention and engagement as well as when you rewind, fast-forward, and rewind. It also takes note of why and when you leave content, what time of day and day of the week you watch content, where are you watching from, what device you are watching on, and your scrolling and browning behavior. There are more than 190 million Netflix users all over the world. In order to process all the information, Netflix takes the help of some advanced data science metrics. It helps the company show recommendations to its users and create better shows for their audience. For example, the hit Netflix series ‘House of Cards’ was created using big data and data science. It collected data from West Wing, another drama show that takes place in the White House. Netflix took into consideration when people fast-forwarded and when people stopped watching the show. By analyzing this data, Netflix was able to create a show that many believe to be perfectly engrossing.
This is just one of the many examples of how big corporations all over the world are using data science to improve their customer experience and revenue. Now is the best time for you to get your data science certification. Here are some tips that will help you prepare for the certification:
- Learn about databases and how you can use tools like Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, Teradata, and MySQL for storing and analyzing data.
- Learn mathematical analysis, statistics, and probability. Mathematical analysis is the mathematics’ branch that involves limits and related theories like differentiation, integration, analytic functions, infinite series, and measures. Statistics is the science concerning the development and studying methods used to collect, analyze, interpret, and present empirical data. Probability measures the likelihood of an event occurrence.
- In order to get the data science certification, you must be skilled in at least one programming language. R, Python, and SAS are important programming tools that are used for data analytics. R is a software environment used for graphics and statistical computing. It supports most of the machine learning algorithms used for data analytics like clustering, association, and regression. Python is a popular general-purpose and open-source programming language. Its libraries like SciPy and NumPy are often used in data science. SAS can be used for mining, altering, managing, and retrieving data from different sources and performing statistical analysis on data.
- You have to work on your data wrangling skills that involve cleaning, organizing, and manipulating data. Some of the popular tools that are used for data wrangling are R, Scoop, Python, and Flume.
- In order to get your data science certification, you need to master machine learning concepts. You must know how to provide systems with the ability to learn and improve from experience automatically without being explicitly programmed to do so. There are a lot of algorithms that are used for machine learning including Naive Bayes, Regressions, Decision Tree, KNN, SVM, and K Means Clustering algorithms.
- You also must have a foundational knowledge of Big Data tools like Apache Spark, Tableau, Hadoop, and Talend that are used for dealing with large, complex data that can’t be processed using the traditional data processing software.
- Lastly, you must have the ability to visualize results. Data visualization is an integral part of data science in which different datasets are integrated and a visual display of the results is created using diagrams, graphs, and charts.
Apart from the above-mentioned technical skills, you also need to work on some non-technical skills to prepare for your data science certification.
- Intellectual curiosity – Curiosity is the desire to gain more knowledge. While working as a data scientist, you must be able to ask questions. You will be spending most of your time collecting and preparing data. This is a field that is evolving fast. So, you must have the intellectual curiosity to stay updated. You need to read relevant books and online blogs that help you in updating your knowledge regularly. It is important to not get overwhelmed by the amount of data. With your curiosity, you will be able to sift through the data to get insights and answers.
- Business acumen – In order to prepare yourself for the data science certification, you must also have a solid knowledge of the industry. If you don’t know the business problems, you won’t be able to come up with a solution. You have to find new ways of leveraging data for the benefit of the business.
- Communication skills – Employers want a data scientist who can translate the technical findings clearly and fluently to a non-technical team like the sales of the marketing department. It will be your job as a data scientist to arm the company with quantified insights and understanding the needs of the non-technical members to appropriately wrangle the data.
So, now that you are ready for the data science certification, you can enroll in a Data Science bootcamp and get started on this exciting and lucrative journey.