Why I Feel Kaggle Is Every Data Enthusiast’s Favorite gym
And here are a set of reasons why I love it
Introduction
Data Science has been one of the fastest-growing industries in the past few years, US Bureau of Labour Statistics suggests that by 2026 there is going to be around 11.5 million job openings. To serve this need a lot of platforms like Kaggle, Udacity, Coursera and many other platforms have tried their hand in helping the population pick up this skill and make the best of it.
In this article, let’s see how Kaggle stands out among such platforms and make an attempt at understanding the reason for all the love that Kaggle seems to enjoy from Data Enthusiasts out there.
Why Kaggle?
Data Science is one of those fields that has a lot of openings but sadly not enough skilled labor for the demand to be met. However, The recent trend among upcoming graduates has been a ray of hope for the industry, with more and more freshers being taken by the data trend, the youth have dived into the mission of getting better and equipping themselves with the right skill to make them a competent asset to their chosen field.
Kaggle’s business model is an absolute hit with both business and freelancers, How Kaggle operates is, it not only helps enthusiasts pick up a new skill by letting them get their hands dirty with a wide range of free datasets to work with, but also let the experienced candidates earn a handsome amount by various challenges arranged on the platform. Bussiness can post their problems related to an issue with relevant data for people to work with and then sit back and witness a vast number of freelancers take up the problem, to hone their skills better.
It’s also a common sight to see various entities offer up a good sum to the top individuals and/or teams that help them get their solution worked out. The Current highest reward when this article got published is $100,000.
Kaggle hasn’t just remained a learning ground for data enthusiasts but also has become a hiring ground for various companies. As one goes through the various challenges and a wide variety of datasets present in the platform, one continuously earns a reputation. Which are most often than not, recognized by companies. A lot of candidates on the platform use it not just as a learning platform but also as a platform to demonstrate their skills to get noticed by their dream companies.
Kaggle boasts of having big sharks such as Facebook and Microsoft posting their challenges onto Kaggle. These big sharks have their recruitment events on Kaggle as well, which are perfect opportunities for individuals to demonstrate their worth to these companies.
How does Kaggle help you?
Given that Kaggle has been a well-established platform for Data enthusiasts to come and hone their skills, either in pursuit of cash prizes that can be obtained from competition or for strict research purposes, the platform is overwhelmed with a kind audience who support works of other people by upvoting and commenting about how one can always be more efficient.
The platform itself encourages reaching out to other people to build a better and stronger community, as a result, one can always expect strong support, encouragement, and advice from the community.
How does Kaggle determine how good you are?
Kaggle measures progression utilizing badges such as Novice, Contributor, Expert, Master, and Grandmaster. While any person joining the platform earns a Novice badge, the badges of Master and Grandmaster take a considerable amount of effort but works as a sign of your competence level which is often recognized by companies and clients.
A person with a Grandmaster badge will find it far easier to obtain new clients for freelancing or have a massive upper hand over a novice in a job interview as the badge symbolizes quality work done by the person and as a sign of consistency, it took for the person to reach that quality of workmanship.
But the question you should be asking is, is Kaggle worth your time?
- Kaggle’s strong community allows you to get in touch with industry leaders and learned experts to gain valuable insights about how one can advance oneself, and the Kaggle platform often holds live discussion between people which are quite interesting, where one can seek advice or give advice if one is rather good at the topic.
- Kaggle has been the easiest entrance for freshers to come in and test the waters with the free challenges to learn more and grow. Apart from this Kaggle also hosts private competitions for Masters and Grandmasters to test their skill against each other while also solving the problem at hand, in return, Kaggle often gives out goodies to its top participants in an attempt to keep up the morale and encourage newcomers to get better and contribute to the community.
- Biggest Whales of the Data Science industries such as Walmart and Facebook host challenges on the platform allowing data enthusiasts to get more exposure by solving the real-time problems faced by these companies, while these companies scout for prospective candidates available in the employment market, thus Kaggle provides a win-win scenario for both companies and Data enthusiasts out there.
