Data Science ? What is it ?

 

“A data scientist is someone who blends, math, algorithms, and an understanding of human behavior with the ability to hack systems together to get answers to interesting human questions from data”   –  Hilary Mason

 

“Data scientists are involved with gathering data, massaging it into a tractable form, making it tell its story, and presenting that story to others”  –  Mike Loukides

 

“An ideal data scientist is “someone who has the both the engineering skills to acquire and manage large data sets, and also has the statistician’s skills to extract value from the large data sets and present that data to a large audience” –  John Rauser

These quotes summarise very nicely the key elements of Data Science, and what a Data Scientist is.

A Data Scientist will be required to utilise skills in the following areas :-

  • Research methods
  • Computer Programming
  • Mathematics
  • Data Analysis
  • Visualisation techniques
  • Communication

The ultimate aim of a Data Scientist is to use data to the extract actionable information and insights, to help inform and improve decision making within a company.

 

 

 

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