The old joke is that a data scientist is a better statistician than a programmer and a better programmer than a statistician. That’s what you need—statistics and programming. You don’t have to be world class in either, though it helps. You just need both.
I did not have a degree directly related to data science. I had studied political science and psychology, when most data scientists study statistics or computer science. (But both poli sci and psych do involve statistics.)
I had always been a hobbyist programmer, but I took time to learn R, which is a very common language for data scientists. (Python is also popular.) I did this through Coursera.
I had also learned Ruby, and I got my start as a software engineer intern after graduating college. I then transferred to the data science department.
Another big benefit for me was that the head of the data science department is a friend of mine, who also helped me get the internship. Skills matter, but so do internal referrals. ;)
The old joke is that a data scientist is a better statistician than a programmer and a better programmer than a statistician. That’s what you need—statistics and programming. You don’t have to be world class in either, though it helps. You just need both.
I did not have a degree directly related to data science. I had studied political science and psychology, when most data scientists study statistics or computer science. (But both poli sci and psych do involve statistics.)
I had always been a hobbyist programmer, but I took time to learn R, which is a very common language for data scientists. (Python is also popular.) I did this through Coursera.
I had also learned Ruby, and I got my start as a software engineer intern after graduating college. I then transferred to the data science department.
Another big benefit for me was that the head of the data science department is a friend of mine, who also helped me get the internship. Skills matter, but so do internal referrals. ;)