1

When you think of data, you typically think of lines of code and numbers. But
data science can be used for some truly spectacular things, and you could
play a game of Two Truths and a Lie with some of these. In fact, that’s exactly
what DataCamp did one week on Instagram!
1. An AI-generated text prediction model was trained to write a Harry Potter
novel.
2. The earliest case of data visualization being used to influence public policy
was around getting better sanitary conditions for British soldiers.
3. AI-powered bees are being developed by the Wyss Institute in Boston to be
used in crop pollination, climate monitoring, and surveillance, among other
things.
4. The City of Chicago used R to predict which restaurants were likely to
commit violations in sanitation inspections, based on factors such as time
since last inspection, the number of nearby sanitation complaints, and the
type of facility being inspected. Prioritizing these outlets for review, they were
able to discover violators one week earlier on average.

As data changes the world, businesses are recognizing that it’s a force to be
reckoned with.
5. Between the dawn of time and 2003, five exabytes of data had been created
at Google. By 2010, this amount of data was being created every two days,
and by 2021 it was being created every 40 minutes.
6. There are approximately 400,000 bytes of data for every grain of sand on
earth.
7. Companies that make use of customer analytics are 23 times more likely to
outperform their competitors in customer acquisition (nine times for retention),
according to McKinsey.
 8. The amount of marketing budget firms allocate towards marketing analytics
increased by 198% in 2020.
9. In 2019 it was reported that only 27% of organizations were able to make full
use of their data to generate actionable insights, with the growing data skills
gap cited as a primary reason.
10. 70% of digital transformation initiatives by organizations fail to accomplish
their stated goals. That’s where DataCamp for Business can help!

Data Science is an incredibly important part of a team that works towards

improving business prospects by way of increasing productivity and implementing
cost-cutting strategies and many other methods.

Data Science is a multidisciplinary field of study which primarily uses scientific and
technical approaches, systems, tools, algorithms, and technologies in order to
obtain important knowledge and valuable insights from data. This data could be
either structured and processed or raw and unstructured in nature.

different ways in which a Data Scientist can power up the value of a Business
organization through the work they do. These are:

 Inspire the management and the main business team to make quality
decisions in different aspects of the business.
 Based on the trends that can be extracted out of the data, Data Scientists can
direct the management and team to take certain actions. This, in turn, helps
them accurately come up with the short term as well as long term goals.
 Data Scientists generally take charge of posing challenges to the whole team
so as to be able to adopt what practices may be best for improving the
 business on a whole and place their primary focus on the pertinent issues at
hand that matter the most.
 Data Scientists, through the knowledge of Data Science, help the business
team identify the best opportunities that it should consider in order to grow
and improve considerably.
 The knowledge of Data Science helps a business organization make quality
and pragmatic decisions that can be backed by measurable data that acts as
evidence for these decisions.
 In addition to making such important decisions for a business organization,
Data Scientists also use their knowledge in order to test the scope of these
decisions and check to see if they fulfil and lie in the interests of the
management and staff of the business organizations.
 Data Science also helps identify and pinpoint the target audience that the
business organization should place its emphasis on. Data Science also helps
in further refining this identified target audience as the business progresses.
 Surprisingly, Data Scientists also use their knowledge about Data Science to
recruit the best people with the best talents to partner with the business
organization and thereby improve their prospects.

Data Science, by virtue of how versatile it is by nature, can be applied in a large

number of fields and domains. So data science is a highly recommended field of
study as the current trends suggest. Some of these fields are

 Targeted advertising to refine the population that a business organization can

‘target’ in order to make better decisions and better serve the interests of their
customers
 Gaming Industry to provide experiences that are more realistic
 Image Detection and Recognition on an advanced level
 Healthcare to improve the scope of medical analysis of images, development
of drugs and to facilitate research in many sub-areas such as genetics and
genomes.
 Detection of the possibility of fraudulent activities and the risks associated
with it by learning to recognize data that is relatively different. Data points that
are unique and different from the rest of the data are identified.
 Detection and Recognition of Speech to develop more applications and
products that can work hands-free
 Providing recommendations for websites for internet and web users using the
best algorithms that are based on Data Science to provide an Internet or web
user with a lot of search options in a fraction of a second.
 Airline route planning to reduce the risks associated with too much air traffic.
Additionally, Airline companies can now use Data Science to predict any
delay in the flight timings, decide the standard and which class of an airline to
choose and buy and whether it is beneficial to them to provide a direct route
or a halt in between.
 Augmented reality to combine the effects of Data Science and Virtual Reality
like in PokemonGo.
  Internet Searches which include cookies and other means to direct you to a
specific type of product a user may be interested in or to personalize your web
experience by providing pop-ups of items according to the user’s interests.

4
1. Data science was identified as the skill with the largest skill gap, according
to a 2021 report by the World Economic Forum.
2. In 2020 the number of data science job listings outstripped the number of
people searching for such jobs by a factor of 3 to 1.
3. The average salary for a data scientist is $100,000 USD according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, and that of an analyst is $70,000 USD.
4. Many data scientist positions only require a degree in a quantitative subject. If
you hold one in the following, you could already be eligible for these positions:
5. The UK’s National Health Service has estimated that by 2040 it will
require 90% of its staff base to be data literate.
6. SQL and Python and the third and fourth most popular technologies,
respectively, among professional developers.
7. 80% of a data scientist’s time is spent organizing data .
 8. Effective data storytelling is one of the most powerful skills a data scientist
can learn.
9. The number of data analysts has more than doubled since 2010.

data-driven business organization.

 Customer experience that seems a lot tailored or personalized:

A highly advantageous aspect of Data Science is that it has the
finest ability to hike up the sales as well as get all the teams
involved in marketing to precisely understand and comprehend
the needs of their targeted audience on a very detailed level.
This, in turn, enables the business organization to take the
required decisions for the same and puts them in a position to
potentially create customer experiences that are second to
none.

 Mitigating the possibility of risk as well as fraudulent

activities: Data Science training also involves providing Data
Scientists with the ability to pick out any data that might seem a
little fishy or that stands out peculiarly amongst the rest of the
data. To start with, Data Scientists use their Data Science
knowledge to create a ton of varied methodologies that are
based on statistical theory, big data, large scale networking and
pathways that are effectively able to predict any models that
have an affinity or propensity for fraudulent activities.

6
Data Science’s Most Used,
Confused, and Abused Jargon
The terminology may seem like a trivial subject, but there have been and will continue to be a
lot of misunderstandings when people use conflicting terminology. There is one example in
the subject of Database which often is the base for misunderstandings. This concerns the
term test data.
Data Science is the theory and practice powering the data-driven
transformations we are seeing across industry and society today.
Data Science is a multidisciplinary field that combines statistics, computer
science and business intelligence to extract meaningful information from
data. Data science is a combination of data analysis, algorithmic development and
technology in order to solve analytical problems. The main goal is a use of data to generate
business value.

Machine Learning refers to the techniques involved in dealing with vast data in the most
intelligent fashion (by developing algorithms) to derive actionable insights. In these
techniques, we expect the algorithms to learn by itself wiithout being explicitly programmed.

statistics (plural) is the entire set of tools and methods used to analyze a set of data.

Data Analysis
This discipline is the little brother of data science. Data analysis is focused more on
answering questions about the present and the past. It uses less complex statistics and
generally tries to identify patterns that can improve an organization.

Many people associate data science to data scientists only, ignoring the other
prominent roles belonging to the field.

Data science includes all of these –

 Data engineer – They are responsible to manage data infrastructure

throughout the data science lifecycle. Basic skills include –
programming tools like python, database tools like NoSQL and big
data tools like Hadoop.
 Data analyst – They find answers of questions by working through the
data available, using appropriate tools. Basic skills include –
programming, data visualisation, statistics, mathematics and of course
data analysis.
 Data scientist – Data scientists work on big data, analyse it and then
communicate the finding through reports and presentations. Basic
skills include – statistics, mathematics, programming,data
visualisation, SQl, Hadoop, machine learning.

7
Big data is hot. A global system of networked devices now generates
terabytes of data each second. Affordable storage makes it possible to
record seemingly arbitrary amounts of information. And machine
learning algorithms, together with distributed computing, increasingly
rise to the task of extracting actionable intelligence from this
information. But what precisely does "big data" mean?
As the importance of data science has grown, so too has the body of
jargon associated with it. While many terms of art are well defined,
others are buzzwords, ubiquitous in the media but lacking concrete
meaning.

Big data is a goldmine for software developers and as necessary

operating a modern businesses as water is to survival on Earth. Big

data utilizes the power of the cloud to generate polychromatic graphs

without which one is a dinosaur in today's economy. Do you have a big

data strategy to keep up with Silicon Valley?

Theorist: Big data is an underspecified term. Presumably it is larger

than mid-sized data and smaller than gigantic data.
8.
Data is analogous to gold in many ways. It is extraordinarily valuable
and has many uses, but you often have to pan for it in order to realize
its value.
data science is a very popular and prominent term used to describe
many different data-related processes and techniques that will be
discussed here. Big data on the other hand is relatively new in the
sense that the amount of data collected and the associated challenges
continues to require new and innovative hardware and techniques for
handling it.

Data science is a very complex field, which is largely due to the diversity

and number of academic disciplines and technologies it draws upon.

Data science incorporates mathematics, statistics, computer science

and programming, statistical modeling, database technologies, signal

processing, data modeling, artificial intelligence and learning, natural

language processing, visualization, predictive analytics, and so on.

Data science is highly applicable to many fields including social media,

medicine, security, health care, social sciences, biological sciences,

engineering, defense, business, economics, finance, marketing,

geolocation, and many more.

Big Data Defined

Big Data is essentially a special application of data science, in which the

data sets are enormous and require overcoming logistical challenges to

deal with them. The primary concern is efficiently capturing, storing,

extracting, processing, and analyzing information from these enormous

data sets.

Processing and analysis of these huge data sets is often not feasible or

achievable due to physical and/or computational constraints. Special

techniques and tools (e.g., software, algorithms, parallel programming,

etc.) are therefore required.

Big Data is the term that is used to encompass these large data sets,

specialized techniques, and customized tools. It is often applied to large

data sets in order to perform general data analysis and find trends, or

to create predictive models.

9
Data has become the engine that drives almost all of today’s activities, no matter if they’re in
the fields of healthcare, technology, education, research, or retail. Additionally, business
orientation has evolved from a product-focused model to a data-focused one. Companies of
all sizes value information, no matter how trivial that data may seem at first glance.
Information analysis and visualization helps marketers and analysts acquire actionable
business insights. This demand has created a need for experts who can pull useful,
meaningful insights out of the terabytes of data available today.

While big data helps banking, retail, and other industries by supplying important technologies
like fraud-detection and operational analysis systems, data analytics enables industries like
banking, energy management, healthcare, travel, and transport develop new advancements by
utilizing historical, and data-based trend analysis. Data science expands on that in more ways
by enabling companies to explore new strategies in scientific discovery, medical
advancements, web development, digital advertisements, ecommerce – literally, anything you
can imagine.

10

8 Must-Have Skills for Data Scientists

Like most careers, the more advanced your position, the greater suite of skills
you’ll need to be successful. However, when looking at becoming a Data
Scientist, there are certain skills you’ll need to be proficient in regardless of
your role.

#1. Math and Statistics

Any good Data Scientist is going to have a strong foundation built on both
math and statistics. Any business, especially those that are data-driven, will
expect a Data Scientist to understand the different approaches to statistics —
including maximum likelihood estimators, distributors, and statistical tests —
in order to help make recommendations and decisions. Calculus and linear
algebra are both key as they’re both tied to machine learning algorithms.

#2. Analytics and Modeling

Data is only as good as the people performing the analytics and modeling on it,
so a skilled Data Scientist is expected to have high proficiency in this area.
Based on a foundation of both critical thinking and communication, a Data
Scientist should be able to analyze data, run tests, and create models to gather
new insights and predict possible outcomes.

#3. Machine Learning Methods

While having expert level knowledge in this area isn’t always necessary, a level
of familiarity will be expected. Decision trees, logistic regression, and more are
key elements that machine learning enables and potential employers will be
looking for these skills.
#4. Programming
To move from the theoretical into creating practical applications, a Data
Scientist needs strong programming skills. Most businesses will expect you to
know both Python and R, as well as other programming languages. Object-
oriented programming, basic syntax, and functions, flow control statements as
well as libraries and documentation all fall under this umbrella.

#5. Data Visualization

Data visualization is a key component of being a Data Scientist as you need to
be able to effectively communicate key messaging and get buy in for proposed
solutions. Understanding how to break down complex data into smaller,
digestible pieces as well as using a variety of visual aids (charts, graphs, and
more) is one skill any Data Scientist will need to be proficient in order to
advance career-wise. Check out our Creating Data Visualizations with
Tableau post to learn more about Tableau and why data visualization is so
important.

#6. Intellectual Curiosity

At the heart of the data science role is a deep curiosity to solve problems and
find solutions — especially ones that require some out of the box thinking.
Data on its own doesn’t mean a whole lot, so a great Data Scientist is fueled by
a desire to understand more about what the data is telling them, and how that
information can be used on a broader scale.

#7. Communication
Data doesn’t communicate without someone manipulating it to be able to do
so, which means an effective Data Scientist needs to have strong
communication skills. Whether it’s disseminating to your team what steps you
want to follow to get from A to B with the data, or giving a presentation
to business leadership, communication can make all the difference in the
outcome of a project.

#8. Business Acumen

For a Data Scientist to effectively use data in a way that’s meaningful to their
employer, there’s a level of business acumen that’s required. You need to fully
understand the key objectives and goals of the business and how it impacts the
work you’re doing. Also, you also have to be able to create solutions that meet
those goals in a way that’s cost-effective, easy-to-implement, and ensures
broad adoption.
Most of the organizations have now realized the importance of data-driven decision making.
Before I move forward let me list down the Data Scientist skills that will get you hired:

 Statistics
 At least one programming language – R/ Python
  Data Extraction, Transformation, and Loading
 Data Wrangling and Data Exploration
 Machine Learning Algorithms
 Advanced Machine Learning (Deep Learning)
 Big Data Processing Frameworks
 Data Visualization

Before I explain each of the above-mentioned points, let me categorize the skills.

As a Data Scientist, you’ll be responsible for jobs that span three domains of skills.

 statistical/mathematical reasoning,
 business communication/leadership, and
 programming

You’ll often be tasked with leading data science projects from end to end. Now, let me
explain each Data Scientist skill one by one.

What Does It Take To Become A Data Scientist – Data Scientist Skills:

1. Statistics:
Wikipedia defines it as the study of the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and
organization of data. Therefore, it shouldn’t be a surprise that data scientists need to know
statistics.

For example, data analysis requires descriptive statistics and probability theory, at a
minimum. These concepts will help you make better business decisions from data.

2. Programming Language R/ Python:

With programming language, you can manipulate the data and apply certain algorithms to
come up with some meaningful insights. Python and R are one of the most widely used
languages by Data Scientists. The primary reason is the number of packages available for
Numeric and Scientific computing. With the help of packages like Scikitlearn in Python and
e1071, rpart etc. in R, it becomes really easy to apply Machine Learning Algorithms.

3. Data Extraction, Transformation, and Loading:

Suppose we have multiple data sources like MySQL DB, MongoDB, Google Analytics. You
have to Extract data from such sources, and then transform it for storing in a proper format
or structure for the purposes of querying and analysis. Finally, you have to load the data in
the Data Warehouse, where you will analyze the data. So, for people from ETL (Extract
Transform and Load) background Data Science can be a good career option.

4. Data Wrangling and Data Exploration:

You have data in the warehouse, but that data is pretty inconsistent. So you
have to clean and unify the messy and complex data sets for easy access and
analysis this is termed as Data Wrangling. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) is
the first step in your data analysis process. Here, you make sense of the data
you have and then figure out what questions you want to ask and how to frame
them, as well as how best to manipulate your available data sources to get the
answers you need.

You do this by taking a broad look at patterns, trends, outliers, unexpected

results and so on.

5. Machine Learning And Advanced Machine Learning (Deep Learning):

Machine Learning, as the name suggests, is the process of making machines
intelligent, that have the power to think, analyze and make decisions. By building
precise Machine Learning models, an organization has a better chance of
identifying profitable opportunities – or avoiding unknown risks.

You should have good hands-on knowledge of various Supervised and

Unsupervised algorithms.

Deep Learning has taken traditional Machine Learning approaches to a next

level. It is inspired by biological Neurons (Brain Cells). The idea here is to mimic
the human brain. A large network of such Artificial Neurons is used, this is
known as Deep Neural Networks. Nowadays, most of the organizations ask for
knowledge of Deep Learning, so don’t miss this.

Python is the most preferred language by Machine Learning experts,

and TensorFlow, is one of the most famous Python libraries for creating Deep
Learning Models.

Check out this blog series on Deep Learning using TensorFlow

6. Big Data Processing Frameworks:

A huge amount of data is required to train Machine Learning/ Deep Learning
models. Earlier because of lack of data and computational power, creating
precise Machine Learning/ Deep Learning models was not possible. Nowadays
huge amount of data is generated at a good velocity. This data can be structured
or unstructured, therefore it cannot be processed by traditional data processing
systems. Such humongous data sets are termed as Big Data.
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Next
Therefore, we require frameworks like Hadoop and Spark to handle Big Data.
Nowadays, most of the organizations are using Big Data analytics to gain hidden
business insights. It is, therefore, a must-have skill for a Data Scientist.

7. Data Visualization:
Data Visualization is one of the most important part of data analysis. It has
always been important to present the data in an understandable and visually
appealing format. Data visualization is one of the skills that Data Scientists have
to master in order to communicate better with the end users. There are multiple
tools like Tableau, Power BI which gives you a nice intuitive interface.

Apart from all the Data Scientist skills I have mentioned above, you should also
possess a data-driven problem-solving approach. This will only come with
experience.
11

1. Probability & Statistics

What can you do with Probability and Statistics for Data Science?

1. Explore and understand more about the data

2. Identify the underlying relationships or dependencies that may
exist between two variables
3. Predict future trend or forecast a drift based on the previous data
trends
4. Determine patterns or motive of the data
5. Uncover anomalies in data

Especially for data-driven companies where stakeholders depend on data

for decision making and design/evaluation of data models, probability and
statistics are integral to Data Science.

Multivariate Calculus & Linear Algebra

Most machine learning, invariably data science models, are built with
several predictors or unknown variables. A knowledge of multivariate
calculus is significant for building a machine learning model. Here are
some of the topics of math you can be familiar with to work in Data
Science:

1. Derivatives and gradients

2. Step function, Sigmoid function, Logit function, ReLU (Rectified
Linear Unit) function
 3. Cost function (most important)
4. Plotting of functions
5. Minimum and Maximum values of a function
6. Scalar, vector, matrix and tensor functions

Skills Required

 Analytical skills: These skills are essential for making sense of data, and
determining which data is relevant when creating reports and looking for solutions.

 Creativity: You need to have the ability to create new methods to gather, interpret,
and analyze a data strategy. Mathematics and statistical skills: Good, old-fashioned
“number crunching” is also necessary, be it in data science, data analytics, or big
data.

 Computer science: Computers are the backbone of every data strategy.

Programmers will have a constant need to come up with algorithms to process data
into insights.

 Business skills: Big data professionals will need to have an understanding of the
business objectives that are in place, as well as the underlying processes that drive
the growth of the business and its profits.

 Programming skills: Knowing programming languages, such as R and Python, are

imperative for any data analyst.

 Statistical skills and mathematics: Descriptive and inferential statistics, as well as

experimental designs, are required skills for data scientists.

 Machine learning skills

 Data wrangling skills: The ability to map raw data and convert it into another
format that enables more convenient consumption of the data

 Communication and data visualization skills

  Data intuition: It is crucial for a professional to be able to think like a data analyst.

Working with unstructured data: It is essential that a data scientist can work with unstructured
data, whether on social media, video feeds, or audio.

12

To be a part of this buzzing field, data science enthusiasts (especially

professionals) across the world are opting for courses to upskill
themselves. Analytics India Magazine conducted a survey on “What
Do Students Look For In A Data Science Course?” and found out
that when it comes to taking up a course, full-time courses have
almost the same popularity as part-time. We all know about the
amazing perk that short term courses offer — the perk of keeping your
jobs while studying — but despite that, 45% of students want full-time
courses. What could be the reasons behind this?

The Driving Force Behind The Popularity Of Long-Term Courses

Knowledge is power, and it is essential for each individual. And one
can gain knowledge by attending universities and take some courses
in a specific field. Talking about course, both part-time and full-time
courses have their own advantages. However, many students feel
that a full-time course is a good choice — this way they can focus
accurately on their lessons without any distraction.

That is not all, they also feel that opting a part-time course throw
challenges on maintaining work-study-life balance — one struggles to
keep a healthy split between time spent on professional and personal
time. And therefore, many end up quitting their day jobs to take up a
full-time course. So, if you have plans to take a full-time course, make
sure that you quit your job at your own peril and you are clear enough
about the reasons why you want to be a full-time student as it has its
own obligations.

Witnessing the popularity of full-time courses, AIM decided to list

down some of the major benefits of opting a full-time course:

1. The first and the major benefit is, your education won’t go to
waste; just in case if you choose not to join the same company
again after completing your course, there are companies that
 might want to hire you based on your past work experience and
your degree or certificate.
2. Your résumé gets an extra touch up and naturally expand as a
result of your full-time course. And that also helps you get
internships or temporary positions while carrying on with your
course. (and you never know, your previous manager might offer
you a position again.)
3. Education and knowledge are power, and the more you have of
these the more you rise. Having a full-time degree or certificate
helps you in job security and also, your income typically
increases as you become more educated. Therefore, if you are
planning to go to college, it can make a significant difference in
your income, your job, and quality of life.
Outlook
Job security and a high paycheck can be tempting and may be the
reasons behind you taking a full-time course. However, when it comes
to education or gaining knowledge, it takes commitment — it is a
heavy word — but plays a vital role when you want to learn
something. It doesn’t matter whether you are taking a long-term
course or a short-term course, if you are not dedicated enough or not
ready to put in your 100%, then things might not work well for you.

Data science courses have been keeping many industry professionals

and enthusiasts busy amid the lockdown. While data scientists are
looking to shield themselves against an oncoming recession by
actively upskilling, others are embracing it to make a career shift for
the opportunities the field provides.

Irrespective of the reasons for this mass shift to online learning,

edtech firms are responding to this demand by opening up access to
some of the premium course materials, launching additional data
science courses, and even making some of them available for free.

Although this trend aligns well with the need to continuously learn to
enhance career prospects and stay relevant in these uncertain times,
it may also indicate an overdependence on e-learning. Distance
education, for all its benefits, has its limitations, especially in a field
like data science, where practical implementation is paramount.
Upskilling should be a part of any data scientist’s career path,