Must-see for data Science: A list of 20 courses from Stanford, MIT, Microsoft, Twitter, and more

Data scientist has been called the sexiest job of the 21st century. Want to be a data scientist? Save this list

The author | Pranavathiyani G

Compile | AI100 (ID: rgznai100)

“Data science is an interdisciplinary science that uses statistical methods to process and analyze large amounts of data to gain a deep understanding of the data.”

Data science has become the new buzz word, with The Harvard Business Review declaring “data scientist” the “sexiest job of the 21st century”.

Hiring data scientists often depends on their mastery of skills. The chart below makes it very clear: basic statistics, programming and visualization are their key skills.

People with all these skills — what might be called unicorns — are often hard to find. Therefore, if everyone on a team has their own areas of expertise, together they can make a good analytics team.

How to become a data scientist?

To be a data scientist, you have to have a strong foundation in all of these areas: programming, communication, even creativity. A creative person can visualize data in a way that no one else has ever done before.

In today’s world, there are a lot of resources available through the Internet. A person must devote his precious time to learning, acquiring, and improving his skills. For example, KDnuggets gives a list of data science MOOcs: