Data Science, next boom industry.

Started by Greg, May 11, 2016, 04:35:35 AM

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Greg

If you are 18-23 and want to get into an industry with at least 10-20 years of well paid future then consider data science, as it is applied to business.  I've attended several conferences around the world and there's a lot of new investor money and growth and new sales being made weekly.  The big banks and insurance companies are beginning to get their first successful projects and spending more on new ideas.

I study a lot of trends and this smells of big money for a long time.  Nearly every business in the world, every government department and even every NFP org can find someway to apply this. With all that money sloshing around, salaries and consulting fees go up.  If you're going to be a leech, then find a fat host with plenty of blood to feast on.

Data science is otherwise known as "big data" and essentially involves collecting large amounts of structured and unstructured data and having computers analyse it to find patterns and correlations which have explicit or implied meaning.  It can show a business what changes to make to improve profitability and it is an "arms race" type of technology.  It can for example optimise pricing of tickets for an airline, or staffing numbers for an event or many, many other similar things which organisations need to run.

In my estimation this sector is going to be one of the better paid and there will be a disproportionate number of consulting gigs, since the human experience of how to apply and understand the data and train the algorithms will be extremely difficult to package and commoditise.

Contentment is knowing that you're right. Happiness is knowing that someone else is wrong.

Lynne

I agree. There's a lot of free courses available online so people can see if it's something they're interested in.

This link is a good blog to follow as a jumping-off point to more in-depth stuff.

http://bigdatauniversity.com/blog/this-week-in-data-science-12/
In conclusion, I can leave you with no better advice than that given after every sermon by Msgr Vincent Giammarino, who was pastor of St Michael's Church in Atlantic City in the 1950s:

    "My dear good people: Do what you have to do, When you're supposed to do it, The best way you can do it,   For the Love of God. Amen"

Mac_Benny

To add a few more links

https://www.edx.org/course/subject/data-analysis-statistics
https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-r-data-science-microsoft-dat204x
https://www.edx.org/course/explore-statistics-r-kix-kiexplorx-0
http://www.smu.edu/Dedman/Academics/Departments/Statistics
https://datascience.smu.edu/


Software
Learn to query SQL databases
R Links for R
MathLabs/Octave Octave is the opensource version of MathLabs
SAS SAS is still the most widely used
SPSS
Learn some web programming languages for front end output.

In University it is a combination of Computer Science & Engineering and Statistics. You will find some B Schools and Nursing Schools teaching R or another Stat Reporting program. Unfortunately most Universities are way to behind on this despite it being around for a couple of decades.

If the math is to hard, then learn enough to be an end user of the output, so that you can be a Business Analysts. BAs are the people between the external/internal clients and the technical people. Requires good relationship and project management skills.

Greg

Remember also that as well as tech jobs there are customer support roles. Solutions consulting. Marketing and sales. Data aquisition and a bunch of other stuff. So even for the non techie it is a good area to enter
Contentment is knowing that you're right. Happiness is knowing that someone else is wrong.