Become a Data Scientist

In this article, we will talk about the most asked question on our blog i.e. How to become a Data Scientist

People have always been curious about how to make a career in data science or how to enter this domain after an experience of, say 3-4 years.

Let’s get started with – How to Become a Data Scientist

To make a career in Analytics you need to ‘ask questions to the data’. There is a saying which goes like ‘If you torture your data enough, it will confess‘. So, you need to torture it.

How to torture your data?

Use SQL and Visualization Tools to understand the dataset
Use Python/R to talk to the dataset. Look into correlation, feature engineering, etc.

You can’t talk to multi-billion rows, right?
So, use Machine Learning Algorithms to make the computer talk on your behalf.

What is the assurance that you and your computer talked and made sense with the data?

Use Statistics to verify this 🙂

Thus the five legs of Analytics
-SQL
-R/Python
-Machine Learning Algorithms
-Statistics

P.S. – You can say that we are promoting our books, but it’s only because 1000s of Data Science enthusiasts have purchased our books and have written us back, thanking us. Why keep a product which is helping others to ourselves?

Should I do a course from Simplilearn?
Should I try Udemy?
I know Python is the key to Data Science?
Is it about a lot of Mathematics?

And after this, a promotional line comes in which sounds something like this

Do you wish to get into Data Science?
We have four ways to be a Data Scientist in 12 hours.

Just follow our course which will cost you only Rs.24999 or a course at Indian Class of Business for Rs. 10 lacks

I would suggest you not to fall in these traps !!

No, we are not here to brag about our course or books or anything. We will genuinely tell you what you should do to enhance your skills and how can you be a strong candidate.

I can assure you that you can be a strong candidate in a DS interview and you can convert 1 in every 8-9 interviews. Why? Because the competition is too freaking high ?

Let’s divide a Data Scientist interview into 5 parts:-

-SQL
-R/Python
-Visualization Tools
-Statistics, Machine Learning Algorithms and practicing Hackathons
-Case Studies and Guesstimates

Some may argue that SQL and Visualization tools are not used in DS domain, but here I am catering to a broader audience and a good knowledge of each will definitely be fruitful. I mean, DEFINITELY ?

How to become a Data Scientist – SQL

The answer to How to become a Data Scientist can’t start without SQL

This is one hell of a sexy language(common, it’s my private space :P)
I love SQL <3

How to prepare –
Give one complete day on SQL from either w3school or Tutorialspoint

After that 2 hours daily, start with SQLZOO (complete it in 4-5 days)
Then move to Hackerrank SQL questions(Complete it in 4-5 days)

I assume that after w3school,sqlzoo, and hacker rank you are in pretty good shape.

We have more than 400 questions on this website covering all the domains which are freely available. Go to the Recent articles to find out the most asked questions in Data Science interview.

Top articles – https://thedatamonk.com/data-science-resources/

DO NOT WAIT for the right time to make your profile and to answer questions. Start now !!

Sign-up and solve at least 150 questions in the next 15 days to strengthen your knowledge.
You can freely access our Daily Quiz here – https://thedatamonk.com/daily-quiz/

You can call it marketing gimmick or promotion or anything.

Dekho, If you buy these two books during the preparation of SQL then you will have lesser chances to get eliminated in the interviews. I am not saying that if you don’t do these questions then you will be eliminated.

These two books are like archive questions of IIT-JEE because most of these are those questions which were actually asked in the companies in which you will apply ?

112 Questions To Crack Business Analyst Interview Using SQL
Crack your next Data Science Interview with 300+ Questions

If you follow these steps, I can assure you that you won’t be eliminated in SQL round.

P.S. – We are writing a final book on SQL which will have something around 200 intermediate to difficult interview questions, so be connected over me on Linkedin for the giveaway

How to start with R/Python and Which one to start with?

Everyone says that Language does not matter but I would suggest that if you are starting your preparation then go for Python.

Preparation

Again, go with w3school or tutorials point, but if you are going for Python, I will suggest you to study the first 1 hour of a 6-hour long video freely available on youtube. Search ‘Python for Data Science’, the video is by Intelipaat.

For R/Python I would definitely recommend Data Camp. The courses here are way too good for any beginner, it might cost you something around 6-7k. But this is totally worth it ?

It would take you one full day to go through the installation, and these study materials.

Then solve these many questions

If else = 10 quest
function = 20 quest
lambda function = 10 quest
loop = 10 quest

You can get these questions on the internet

If you want to go deep in the syntax part then solve 20-25 beginner level questions on Codechef

Now you are good with Python basics, now you need to give one complete day on EACH of these packages
-pandas
-NumPy
-seaborn and sklearn

We have a book on these ‘Learn Pandas and Numpy the Data Science way’ (will be published soon. You can get a copy if you want to get the basics better

But, I will highly recommend you
125 Must Have Python Questions

Again, whenever you think you need an extra push, you can buy the book. Also in the 300 questions book mentioned above, we have a question on Python also, so wahan se bhi cover ho jaeyga

If you are good till here, then you would be quite decent in SQL and Python(Syntax)

In short – How to become a Data Scientist – SQL and Python 🙂

Power of Visualisation – Power BI/Tableau

You can opt for either Power BI or Tableau. If you have industrial experience in Tableau then these rounds or questions would not be difficult.

If you are a fresher or want to move to DS then do try any course on Udemy. It will cost you around ~500 rupees or $7

I would recommend you to take any free or paid certification. I have an e-book on Power BI with 100 questions. Ping in the comment section or send a mail to [email protected] to receive a copy of the same.

Mention in the mail that you are here after reading our post on the website to get the book for free ?

4. How to prepare for Case Studies and Guesstimates

I would be frank here if you are too good at case studies then no need to spend much time. But if you are not in the top 2-3 percentile, there is just one book with most of the interview questions asked in Myntra, Flipkart, Google, Ola, OYO, Uber, etc.

We have collated it here in this book, this is a must-buy
Business Analyst and MBA Aspirant’s Complete Guide to Case Study

Take it as a cheat-sheet or an archived question bank, but this contains around 30 case studies and guesstimates which can surely help you

How to become a Data Scientist – ML, Statistics and Hackathons

How to become a Data Scientist – Practice a lot of ML and Statistics

This is where you need to keep your focus on, start with any book on basic statistics. You need to cover the basics of population, sampling, error, prediction, normal distribution, linear equation, etc.

You just need to be a bit confident about the topics.

Broadly speaking, the following are the different algorithms/domains of Data Science, choose one or two from the below list:-

1. Linear Regression(LASSO, Elastic Net)
2. Logistic Regression
3. NLP
4. Time Series Forecasting
5. K-Nearest neighbor
6. K-mean
8. Boosting Algorithms(Ada, Gradient, XGBoost)
9. Artificial Intelligence
10. Neural Network
11. Random Forest and Decision Tree

I can go on and on, but wait, you need to start with Linear Regression, yes, that’s it!!

For Machine Learning also I would definitely recommend Data Camp. They have very interactive courses on different algorithms. Again, look into the website for the course fee, at the time of writing there were some discounts as well.

If not Data Camp, then we can surely help you

Start with the implementation part of Linear Regression and then hop to Logistic Regression or Natural Language processing.

Linear Regression is both, a simple and important algorithm to clear your basics.

There are a few good blogs on Kaggle and Analytics Vidhya, but if you feel lost, we are here with our book on Linear Regression and ARIMA Time Series Forecasting

Complete Linear Regression and ARIMA Forecasting project using R

I would also recommend you to solve a few of these problems on Kaggle
-Titanic Survival Problem
-Boston Housing Problem
-Petal-Sepal Problem

These will definitely get you a gist of different algorithms. So, go and make a profile on Kaggle and Analytics Vidhya.

At last How to become a Data Scientist – Solve a few Hackathons, do proper analysis in Python and in the meanwhile understand the math at the back end

Analytics Vidhya also organizes daily hackathons, I would suggest you to participate in at least one per month.

You can also look around on this website to understand a few tricky concepts.

This whole exercise will take you around 10-12 days(Part 5)

So, in a month or so you can definitely be quite good in most of the parts of Data Science.

Now, if you are planning to appear to any Data Science interviews, then you need to know what type of questions are asked in the interview

We have three such books which cover more than 700 interview questions in the following books, You should consider getting your hands on these

What do they ask in top Data Science Interviews?
What do they ask in top Data Science Interviews Part 2
Crack your next Data Science Interview with 300+ Questions

All of our books are having good reviews, so you can try these.

If you are serious about getting into Data Science, we have 10 e-book Bundle which covers more than 1400 interview questions distributed in 10 e-books

1. 112 Questions to crack Business Analyst interview using SQL
2. 100 Supervised Learning Questions (To give a background of ML)
3. 125 Must have Python Interview Questions(To start with Python)
4. Visualization in Python (Covering Visualization in Python)
5. 100 Power BI Questions (Covering Visualization in Power BI)
6. Learn Statistics in Python (Now, you start getting better in Python)
7. Top 300+Interview Questions in Data Science(Covering statistics,python,SQL,case studies,guesstimates)
8. What do they ask in Top Data Science interviews – Part 1 (Now you understand the complete flow)
9. What do they ask in Top Data Science interviews – Part 2
10. Case Studies and Guesstimates for Interviews

These books are marked at Rs.2300 on Amazon, but we are offering it at Rs.549.

If you want to avail these PDFs then comment in the section below or drop a
mail to [email protected] or [email protected] Whatsapp at 9798049301

All the questions are more than welcome.

Keep Learning ?

The Data Monk