Data Science in Post-Covid Era
Data science has been the fastest-growing field in the last decade. But COVID 19 has forced us to put a hold on everything. Right now, all of us are sitting in our homes and expecting COVID-19 vaccine to arrive so life can return to normal. But will that normal be the same or will it deviate? And if it is a new normal, then, how will the analytics industry respond to the change?
During the COVID era, we have seen an upsurge in admissions to MOOCs and short term online courses on Data science and machine learning. The Aarogya setu app launched by Government of India is an application of data science which predicts whether one is susceptible to infection or not based on the past 30 days data. Some hospitals in foreign countries have installed robots, made by the combination of artificial intelligence and IoT devices, to give food and medicines to people to prevent the spread of the virus among doctors and nursing staff. Covid19org is one of many organizations that have started recently to draw the focus of people on visualizations so that they can understand the situation better. Apart from this, IIT Madras has launched two online courses on Data Science and Machine learning this year in response to increasing demand. So, we can say that more and more people are coming in the field of analytics after COVID 19 ends. Markets and Markets published an article on COVID 19 impact on analytics market which predicted that the analytics market would continue to grow to post the COVID era and it will be because of digital transformations and new investments for the growth of the field.
But the question that most people have in mind right now is: Is it worth it?
The answer to the above question is YES. It is worth it as demand is likely to be increased. But, with a surge in supply of new data professionals, the benchmark skills would increase. I believe, after the COVID era, the minimum qualifications for securing a job in the field will increase. Since, many of the people are doing online courses on Data Science, Python, SQL, Analytics and Machine Learning, the value for an online certification might decrease. This is because the coursework involved is not rigorous enough to make a person learn all basics. Websites like Coursera, Udemy, DataCamp etc. are gradually becoming certification mills as they are giving away certificates without proper testing of acquired skills or even going through all the video content. So what can one do to learn the skills?
One can initially start with these certifications. They are helpful if you can learn whatever they are teaching and you’re implementing the skills taught in some projects. Next step must be to start coding. For coding, if you’re choosing python, most websites teach specific package for doing a task but you should NOT do that. Always start with basics. Go through the data structures and algorithms. Then, start with mastering packages one by one. A person can make a Github portfolio and make repositories on it to showcase your skills. You can even fork other people repos and work on it. Gradually, you can make your own projects. While doing projects don’t just take a well-known dataset and analyze it, try to collect your own data, visualize it, clean it, extract features, perform analysis and draw the inference. The next step should be to take internships in the analytics field. You can even help researchers in their work, which will help you to enhance your knowledge further.
Hope you liked it.
I’ll be posting a self-learning course structure of Python shortly.
Stay Tuned!
References:
https://analyticsindiamag.com/post-covid-era-will-call-for-a-new-normal-in-data-and-analytics-industry/
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/technology/these-are-the-technologies-that-will-revolutionise-business-in-the-post-covid-19-decade-5438721.html
https://analyticsindiamag.com/things-that-would-change-for-new-data-scientists-due-to-covid-19-pandemic/
http://confluence.ias.ac.in/post-covid-19-a-technology-driven-era-for-higher-education/
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spotlight/rise-in-the-demand-for-machine-learning-ai-skills-in-the-post-covid-world/articleshow/75464397.cms
https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/covid-19-impact-on-analytics-market-11024881.html
