New Poll: How long does it take to become a good data scientist?
The data scientist shortage is real, and many people want to join the profession. New KDnuggets poll is asking: How long does it take for a beginner to become a good data scientist? Please vote
New KDnuggets Poll is asking:
This poll is now closed, but here are the results of the poll
How long does it take for a beginner to become a good data scientist ?
There is a lot of demand for data scientists, and a famous McKinsey study projected a shortage of 140-190,000 data scientists just in the US, and 1.5 million analytics-related managers and analysts.
Some studies (and Malcom Gladwell book Outliers) suggest it takes 10,000 hours to become proficient , which is about 5 years of 50 weeks/year and 40 hours/week (of course many data scientists work longer weeks).
Derrick Harris in Why becoming a data scientist might be easier than you think, (GigaOM, Oct 14, 2012), thinks one can become a data scientist faster with Kaggle (or other) competitions and courses on python and machine learning.
What do you think? Please vote and comment.
Some useful some educational resources:
- KDnuggets Directory for Education in Analytics, Data Mining, and Data Science
- Graduate Programs in Big Data Analytics and Data Science, by Gil Press
- Big Data Analytics Masters Degrees: 20 Top Programs, Information Week
- Stanford Data Mining Certificates online
- Northwesterm Online Master of Science in Predictive Analytics
- INSOFE Certificates in Engineering Big Data and Applied Predictive Analytics - Online
