Hi.
I’ve been working as a data scientist for over 10 years now, doing it even before it was called so. And I've seen a lot of data of many domains - finance, retail, gaming, telecom, cyber, and even education, predicting various actions and analyzing trends. I also got and still getting job/ contract offers from various companies on weekly basis, and many of them have this traditional skill list that they expect from a person to have, which, nowadays, usually includes things like Python, R, Machine Learning, Big Data, Scala and many other buzz-words. But is it really what makes data scientist a good one? a useful one ? I mean no doubt it is essential. But is it all there is?
At the same time, I also get a lot of adds from sources like Coursera, Udemy and alike. They all offer me some very special course in Python, R or similar. Like that’s what i am really missing to become a super-star data scientist.
It all reminds me of my academic experience — since my childhood, when i was taught some new lesson in school — i’ve always wondered — what do i do with this knowledge? how do I apply it? Besides passing the annual test and getting my “A” equivalent grade? It’s even a common joke — to wonder what are logarithms stand for in real life? And they have reasons to exists! It’s not just to torture you on paper! All these ridiculous numbers and Greek letters have everyday application in real life, but 99% of people aren’t even aware of it.
SO what is my point here?
I’d love to see interdisciplinary courses or just articles about things like: psychology, anthropology, chemistry and so on. For data scientists.
I know there are courses and materials about all of it. I even tried to listen to some. But got bored very quick as they aren’t focused. They talk general and theories and it may take years to get to relevant matters. Best source of useful information I’ve found so far was TED talks, like this one https://www.ted.com/talks/emilie_wapnick_why_some_of_us_don_t_have_one_true_calling/discussion?nolanguage=enhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks%2Fregina_hartley_why_the_best_hire_might_not_have_the_perfect_resume%3Flanguage%3Den
Which is basically talking about the same matter — the benefit of interdisciplinary approach.
And I’d love to find a source to get focused information about things i try to do at work everyday — like predicting churn or detecting behavioral anomalies— to see it from psychological or anthropological or gender-studies view or what’s not, whatever might be relevant to my research. And I barely have time to read 10 books (and find them first among thousands of others) to pick the relevant crumbs of information. I want to stay focused on my anomalies, but also to be able to see them from non-technical point of view, to be able to apply common sense, to human-rational-test it and compile with knowledge of other people, who researched similar behaviors for years, just using other terminology. I want to benefit from their work and stop inventing the wheel and wild-guessing.
I think technical skills are super important, but in order to make data-related work A SCIENCE — it needs to be enriched with interdisciplinary and business knowledge, which is seriously lacking, in most computer-science-oriented professionals.