Three things you should know before you become a data scientist!

The data science domain is attracting a lot of attention, especially with the release of LLMs. Everyone wants to become a data scientist with a dream of building complex and sophisticated models to create impact. But before jumping into this field, you should understand three critical aspects you must manipulate to build exceptional models.

1. You will never get good data!

If you think that in your next project, you will get better data, then you have set the wrong expectations. This will never happen! No!

Don’t get disheartened or frustrated in such situations, rather work with the data you have at your hand. As a data scientist, your art is manipulating data to extract maximum insights. Thus spend more time understanding the data rather than rushing into building a model.

2. Learn new skills hands-on!

The data science domain is relatively new and is growing at a vast pace. So many new tools and technologies are being added to crunch gigabytes and terabytes of data. Even the process of building models is automated. Thus, the demand for new skills will always be there in the real world. You won’t get to learn these skills from textbooks. Therefore, it is important to have a guide/mentor or a university connection who can help you in this journey.

3. Model building comes way later!

Yes, you read it right, data science is not model building, comparing metrics, and implementing the solution. One important skill which you would need to succeed in this role is to transform the business goal or problem into a measurable metric. Your goal as a data scientist is to add value to the business instead of blindly building models.

Simply learning data science won’t help you build your career, but the exercise of learning something hands-on will build your confidence.