I’m a senior in college currently working on the Data Science learning path. After college I’m looking to become a Data Analyst to start off my career, I was wondering if all the topics covered in this path will be useful to helping me reach my goal by finding a job in this career field. I understand data scientist are more advanced than a data analyst, and I don’t want to spend my time learning something that will not be useful in helping me in my career.
Hi Kevin, I’m not a professional Data Scientist, but I’m also interested in completing the Data Science here on codecademy. I worked as a market research analyst (qualitative and quantitative) for a number of years and have recently started getting into the “data science” side. I think that Data Science by itself is kind of a buzz word, but as far as I can tell, pretty much everything that is covered from a technical learning standpoint (coding, working with data in python or R, interacting with databases, visualizing data, etc, machine learning, etc) – ALL of that is directly applicable and helpful to being an Analyst. Having read various industry forums about Data Science (such as on Reddit), there is a lot of difference between what DS means in one company vs. another, and on the high end of the ability/pay scale the people that work as Data Scientists can be responsible for setting up entire networks and data flows, requiring very sofisticated computing skills as well as a strong background in statistics. Most people in the field say that going deep into statistics is more valuable than any of the other trend words associated with Data Science. However, to go back to your question, having looked over the course list here in the DS area, I think that all of it would benefit you (and me) moving forward. Somethings might be beyond what you need to start out as an analyst (i.e. Node.js, front-end programming) but those are solid areas to learn about when you get there. Hope that helps. One other thing, keep in mind that even when you’re working as an Analyst, you’re job is solving business problems and human problems. No one gets hired just to analyze something, they get hired to solve problems and improve the company’s situation. Everything you can learn here will give you a better toolset to solve problems, regardless of the job title or buzzwords.
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