Getting Started with Data Science from scratch.
Learning Data Science on your own is difficult specially when you are trying to learn for free, because there is so much content on the internet, and deciding what and from where to learn is over. So in this blog post I am going to share some resources that are free and help you learn data science in comparatively short time and make you job ready.
If money is not a problem you can take courses on Udacity or Coursera. There are so many platforms from where you can learn, but I find Udacity more useful especially when you are getting started, because the courses are much more organized and you will have a dedicated mentor who will answer any question you ask, related to the field and will also help with your assignments, and help you prepare for interviews and job search. I would not say that they have the best content and materials, but in my opinion it is enough to get you started with some relevant experience.
Now, if you want to learn and practice for free, then DataCamp is a very good platform for you, it is not free though, you have to pay around 13$/month to access their courses, but you can get two month free access and no one is going to ask you to enter any card details :), if you have a Microsoft account, and if you don’t, create one.
Now go this URL https://my.visualstudio.com/benefits, Locate the DataCamp benefit tile in the “Professional Development” category, and click on Activate.
and you will be redirected to DataCamp, now create your DataCamp Account.
Once your account has been created, you can choose a learning path
Learning Paths to choose:
Go to career-tracks : https://learn.datacamp.com/career-tracks and complete them in the same order.
Python
https://learn.datacamp.com/career-tracks/python-programmer
Data Analyst
https://learn.datacamp.com/career-tracks/data-analyst-with-python?version=4
Data Scientist
https://learn.datacamp.com/career-tracks/data-scientist-with-python
Machine Learning
https://learn.datacamp.com/career-tracks/machine-learning-scientist-with-python
Data Analyst With SQL
https://learn.datacamp.com/career-tracks/data-analyst-with-sql-server
Data Engineer
https://learn.datacamp.com/career-tracks/data-engineer-with-python
Many courses will overlap in these tracks, which will help you finish them faster.
You should also learn about Git, and its very good to learn Tableau and/or Power BI.
https://learn.datacamp.com/courses/introduction-to-git
Projects
No course is complete with out projects, And there many guided projects on DataCamp that you can do, they are guided hence very easy to do, and doing the project is where the learning happens, so do not skip them, they are more important than the courses itself. Try to do as many as possible to the point when you feel comfortable enough to start your own projects, there are some really cool guided project on Coursera also, but you have to pay if you want to access them.
Be Job Ready with Kaggle.
Now is the time to be job ready, Kaggle is a place where I personally learned the most, and I believe that participating in data science competition make you learn really fast, an helps you crack interview easily.
So create your profile on Kaggle, participate in at least 2–3 ongoing competitions, talk to people and ask for help from other if you get stuck, and complete them, Initially you may not get very good rankings on kaggle’s leaderboards, but you will have enough understanding, experience and few very good projects that you can mention in your resume.
By the way you can reach out to me also if you need more help or you get stuck somewhere.
Start Applying for Jobs.
Now you are ready to apply for jobs, I like LinkedIn and angel.co the most, and you are more likely to get responses from angel.co, as per my experience.
I wish you happy learning and good luck. And thanks for reading.
I share really good content and code about data science, data engineering and machine learning, and if you find this helpful, you may want to follow us.
YouTube Channels to follow:
Abhishek Thakur: https://www.youtube.com/user/abhisheksvnit
Aladdin Persson https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkzW5JSFwvKRjXABI-UTAkQ
Yannic Kilcher : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZHmQk67mSJgfCCTn7xBfew
Book recommendation if you want to read one.
Approaching (Almost) Any Machine Learning Problem
Amazon : https://www.amazon.com/Approaching-Almost-Machine-Learning-Problem/dp/8269211508
The same book is available on GitHub also, for free. https://github.com/abhishekkrthakur/approachingalmost
