What is A data scientist?
“A data scientist is really a scientist,” says Scott Bellew, chief of the Enterprise Advanced Analytics Branch in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer of the US Patent and Trademark Office. “But instead of using chemicals or other things, a data scientist uses data—numbers, zeros, sometimes textual information—to solve problems.”
While data science is still a relatively new career field, employers are increasingly recognizing the value of professionals with this expertise. Today, you’ll find data scientists working in a wide range of organizations, including tech startups, government agencies, large corporations, and research institutes.
Chris Holdgraf, director of the nonprofit International Interactive Computing Collaborative, which helps researchers and educators implement data science infrastructures in the cloud, began learning about data science as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. With the help of information at the university, he taught himself coding, analysis, and other skills that he thought would help him conduct neuroscience research.
“By the end of my PhD, I had inadvertently developed a very good (data science) skill set,” he says.
While serving as a fellow at UC Berkeley’s Data Science Institute, Holdgraf collected data from electrodes placed directly on the surface of patients’ brains to learn more about how they hear. By feeding data into computer programs he created, Holdgraf conducted experiments, made observations, and drew conclusions about the brain’s response to different types of sounds. Then, he wrote articles about the results.
“Being a data scientist gives me the flexibility to work with people from different backgrounds and to work on problems that are meaningful to many different communities, which I really enjoy,” he says. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment growth of 31.4 percent for data scientists between 2020 and 2030. During this period, about 19,800 jobs should be created.
How Much Does a Data Scientist Make?
How to become A data scientist?
Because the title “data scientist” can refer to a variety of jobs in a wide range of industries, the skills you need may vary.
“The most common denominators are courses in statistics and computational analytics — including things like machine learning, for example — but there’s a lot of focus on hands-on, hands-on, hands-on kind of work,” says Holdgraf. A completed version of those concepts.”
In fact, aspiring data scientists can’t be afraid of numbers, Holdgraf says, though, “you don’t have to be a mathematician” and you do need to be comfortable with computers.
Communication skills are also critical, he says. “You can run all the analysis you want, but ultimately, it’s only going to be useful if you can turn it into something that’s useful to another human being.”
Interested in getting started in data science? read us A guide on how to learn data science.
Job Satisfaction
The average American works well into their 60s, so workers may have an enjoyable and fulfilling career. A job with a low stress level, good work-life balance, and strong prospects for improvement, promotion, and higher pay make many employees happy. Here’s how Data scientists Job satisfaction is rated in terms of upward mobility, stress level and flexibility.