Becoming a Data Scientist — Part 1 Background

We are at the apex of the data science wave. With all the bootcamps popping up one after another, and the data science title being constantly regalled as the best occupation of the 21st century, the saturation of the industry is ridiculous. Is it even worth it to pursue a career in this field…?

“Is it even worth it to pursue a career in this field…?”

My Background

I believe it’s important to preface this article by explaining where I’m coming from. Oftentimes when we read about data scientists who got their phd in bioinformatics, or studied some quantitative research field in their undergrad. Here’s my list:

• B.S. Applied Mathematics
• High School Calculus/Statistics Teacher
• Founder of a Private School
• Data Analyst for Teaching.com

Yes, I do have a quantitative background, but I did everything I could to avoid programming in college. I HATED IT. I recall taking one class in C++ and one class in Java, but only remember writing System.out.println(“Hello, World!”) and maybe some for loops. I made sure to take every class I could that didn’t involve programming in order to complete my degree.