20 Tips for Learning Data Science in 6 Months
Making a transition in data science is not easy. While it’s true that if you are from the computer science domain then you will find the transition a little easier as compared to those who are from a completely different sector, what is common is the fact that it takes a significant amount of time to be data science ready as outlined over at runrex.com. If you want to make the transition to a data science role, then continue reading as this article will outline 20 tips and tricks that will help you learn data science in 6 months.
Create your roadmap
As the gurus over at guttulus.com point out, a plan is the most important thing to have when you are starting your data science journey. It is not easy to complete learning a vast subject like data science in 6 months, which is why it is important to have a plan about how you are going to go about your data science learning process.
How to create a roadmap
The following tips will help you come up with a roadmap that will allow you to learn data science in 6 months:
Assess yourself
When creating your roadmap designed to help you learn data science in 6 months, it is important to start by assessing yourself. As is discussed over at runrex.com, this means finding out what you know and what you don’t know so that you can figure out what you need to learn within those 6 months.
Find out the mandatory skills required
Once you are done assessing yourself, then the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com recommend that you find out the mandatory programming skills you will need to have if you are to get a role in data science, and then make sure you plan on acquiring these skills.
Conduct industry research
Next up, you should look at all the industries that are currently leveraging data science, and then try and figure out what suits you best. Finding the industry in which you think you will fit in best will allow you to tailor your learning towards acquiring skills that are relevant for data scientists working in that particular industry.
Research different roles
Just like the industry research covered in the previous point, you should also look at different job roles in data science, understand the job descriptions, and then decide which ones fit you best so that you can tailor your studying towards acquiring the skills and tools required for that particular role.
Play the milestone card
When your goal is to learn data science in 6 months, you must play the milestone card when setting up your roadmap as covered over at runrex.com. This means setting a milestone that you should achieve every month. This will motivate you and ensure that you remain on track to achieve your goal of learning data science in 6 months.
A proper plan will help you stay on track as you would have a fixed industry and job role to focus on.
Pick the right course
This is one of the most important tips when you are looking to learn data science in 6 months according to guttulus.com. Here, you can either go to an institute and enroll in a data science course or you can take up an online course.
Your schedule will govern which route will suit you best
If you don’t have any other engagements, then you can enroll in a data science course at an institute of your choice. However, as revealed in discussions on the same over at runrex.com, this option won’t be feasible for professionals with full-time day jobs looking to transition into data science. Therefore, to keep your work life and learning process balanced, you might want to take an online course. You can always look up online platforms like Udemy, Udacity, Coursera, edX, etc. for data science courses.
Consider the self-assessment you did when coming up with your roadmap
Most of the online courses out there cover a lot of details about each topic in data science, and if you go through everything, you might end up taking a lot more time to complete it. Therefore, you should go back to the first point when you were coming up with your roadmap – assessment. You can keep the topics and concepts that you are already clear with for the last lap of this 6-month marathon, and start with the topics and concepts that are completely new.
Learn data science by doing
While learning about machine learning, neural networks, image recognition, and other concepts and techniques is important, the best way to learn data science is to work on projects. By working on projects, you gain skills that are immediately applicable and useful. Make sure you complete at least one project during the 6-month period you have set yourself to learn data science.
How can I find a good project?
If you are wondering where you can find a good project, the gurus over at guttulus.com recommend that you find a data set that you like. Some of the places you can find a good data set to work with include the data sets subreddit on Reddit and the UCI machine learning repository.
Practice programming
Other than any projects, you also need to make sure you spare some time to practice programming. As is outlined over at runrex.com, you have to spend a significant amount of time practicing programming as well as other data science projects if you want to master the same.
Where can I find the time if I have a day job?
If you are already swamped with a day job, you may be wondering where you will find the time for your practice session. As the experts over at guttulus.com point out, you can either take time out while in the office, or you can wait until you reach back home after work to practice your data science skills
Tips on how to practice and learn data science even when swamped with work
Ask a colleague
If you know how to go about it, then the office could be the best way to learn and practice things related to data science. If it is programming, ask your colleague who is from the data science field to help you with programming. Find periods when you don’t have much time and that the colleague is also free and ask them to let you do some coding while they jump in and help if you get stuck. Utilize your lunch break wisely. It shouldn’t take you an hour to have your lunch.
Connect with more data scientists from your workplace
You should also look to connect with more data scientists from your workplace. Chances are that you have such professionals in your company; connect with them and ask them to help you with concepts and projects. If you want to take it to the next level, you can ask them to let you work with them on projects when there is free time.
These tips will help you learn and practice important data science concepts, and stay on track to learn data science in 6 months, even if you have a full-time job.
Make the best out of free content
Even if you have a paid full-time online course, it is considered good practice to keep looking at free resources as well as outlined over at runrex.com. As far as free resources are concerned, one of the best such resources is YouTube where you will find lots of channels that are focused on data science, programming, and even solutions to hackathons.
Hackathons
Speaking of hackathons, you should spare some time if you can to take part in them according to the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com. If you have a full-time job, the weekend is the perfect time to take part in hackathons, which will help you put into practice what you have learned, helping you gain a better understanding of the concepts learned.
Learn to communicate insights
Data scientists constantly need to present the results of their analysis to others. Therefore, learning how to communicate your insights should be part of your learning when learning data science. Some of the things you should try that will help you with this, as covered over at runrex.com, include:
Starting a blog where you post the results of your data analysis
Try teaching your less tech-savvy friends and family about data science concepts
Try to attend and speak at meetups
Use GitHub to host and share all your analysis, etc.
Constantly increase the degree of difficulty
Within those 6 months, you should always look to challenge yourself even as you learn. If you find yourself getting too comfortable, then you should try and increase the difficulty level by trying a new concept to do the same project. This includes working with a larger set of data, trying to see if you can make your algorithm faster, and so forth, and you will be an expert after those 6 months.
Network
You must be wondering where you will find the time to network if you only have 6 months to learn data science. However, it is worth noting that networking is also part of that learning phase as it will give you a view of how the industry is operating, what and all job roles are there, how companies are hiring, and so much more. You don’t have to spend a lot of time meeting and connecting with other folks from the data science community, but at least attend events and conferences focused on data science.
Hopefully, this article will set you on your way to learning data science in 6 months, with more on this topic to be found over at the excellent runrex.com and guttulus.com.