At present, the data scientists are the power holders. Most of the people these days are trying to get themselves a piece of the action by becoming a data analyst, data engineer and data scientist. There is nothing wrong in thinking to become a data scientist. Becoming a data scientist or a data analyst is not that easy as you think. It is essential to put in the required work to qualify yourself for becoming a data scientist.
Coming to the question, can I become a data scientist with no experience? The answer is yes, you can become a data scientist. It doesn’t mean that you have to teach yourself some data science concepts and the tools to directly start handling the enormous data at organizations as data scientists.
Experience doesn’t matter, all you need is to have a great degree from a top data science graduate school or you can do the data science certification online. Also, there are plenty of ways to acquire the skill set of a data scientist on your own. Before exploring the skills that you need to become a data scientist without the work experience, it is important to know what exactly a data scientist does.
What is a data scientist?
The work of the data scientist is to collect and clean a large amount of data, maintain easy to use dashboards and the databases. The work of the data scientist doesn’t stop over there. They have to interpret the data to solve the problems and run experiments, build algorithms and present the data to the stakeholders in the attractive visualizations.
Nowadays many of them pursue a career in data science for various reasons from high salary to exciting problems to solve across diverse industries.
Is data science hard?
The hardness depends upon your backgrounds and whether you are enjoying working with the numbers and data. The data scientists are different from that of the data engineers and you will have to learn how to code in order to create predictive models.
In data science, you will come across the tough problems, a large amount of data, technical expertise and some domain knowledge. But many online resources can help you to get started with data science. Moreover, you will enjoy learning data science from scratch as you can learn in-depth from it. The data scientists are constantly improving their skills and are learning new technologies so it is best to become a data scientist.
Is degree required to become a data scientist?
You can learn data science without an advanced degree or a bachelor’s degree. For job roles like data scientist, the companies are open to hire non-traditional applicants and most of the top companies no longer require college degrees for the applicants.
If you want to become a data scientist without a degree, the best way is to take an online data science programs with certification or you can self teach yourself through videos and modules.
Without previous experience steps for getting into data science
Step 1: polish up on your math skills
If you are the one from a quantitative background, then data science can be easy for you. Before analysing the data with the tools, you have to get to know about the foundation of data analysis. All that starts from plotting the data points on graphs along the axis, finding correlation and the trends between the different variables. Some of the maths concepts that you have to know and can be helpful for you are,
- Statistical methods and probability
- Linear algebra
- Markov chains
- Regression analysis
- Data summaries and descriptive statistics
- Hypothesis testing
- Step 2: learn a programming language
If you want to become a data scientist, you can learn more and it is more about what you know and how well you can improve your skills. Once you have a solid foundation in maths, you can go with the programming languages. Some of the important languages to prioritize are,
- Python
- R
- SQL
- SAS
Step 3: internships or site projects
As you are building your knowledge base, you can apply your skills in real-world settings and get real-time feedback. You can use the freelancing platforms and also search for part-time jobs or internships on job boards or through social media.
Before getting interviewed, make sure you practice solving the coding problems and explore much on the potential data science questions. It can be hard at first to gain experience without experience, but later you can prove that you have more knowledge in data science.
Step 4: start as a data analyst
The data analysts and the data scientists are not the same; they are different and are very popular nowadays. The main work of the data analyst is to collect the data and identify dataset trends. If you are interested in data analytics, you have to cover with the framing structured thinking, analysing business problems, visualising data with python and communicating the analyses.
Step 5: work hard and harder
You have to get to know the data scientists and from them, you can learn more about different career opportunities when learning data science. You have to find which company you would like to work for, what are their projects and how you can prepare for the job application process.
When you are starting without the experience, you can easily break into the smaller companies. If you aim to get into the larger companies you will have to train yourself in a good way.
Step 6: to potential employers explain your career transition
Data science is an interdisciplinary field and your prior knowledge will not be lost in any case. You have to focus on your data science experience in your resume and also it is important to mention the past roles where you used the communication, Collaboration and other transferable skills. Mention whatever you have learnt regarding data science in your data science training.
The bottom lines
No matter you have experience as a data scientist when you are equally equipped with all the skills that a data scientist should have. What are you waiting for? become the best data scientist and explore the world.
