Data Analytics, Big Data, Data Scientist, these are no longer big terms from a far away profession, these words or rather roles are becoming catalysts, impacting the growth of our businesses and enhancing the overall experience we get in doing our daily tasks.

Our online presence is not a matter of choice anymore; we often find ourselves using online portals to shop, connect with a doctor, research, basically from going on a vacation to preparing for motherhood, marriages, and dating, to banking, and even school and college admissions, all of these are done online, we even use social networking to express ourselves, through tweets, posts etc…,

Excessive usage of the internet creates online activity logs that contain humongous amounts of data.

Now imagine the camera’s mounted almost on every corner of the street and satellite based observations like the google map and google earth, they also collect data in large numbers on how people conduct themselves.

This data that is generated is being collected in large numbers around the clock, in real time and historic, this data further needs to be extracted, however, it is easier said than done, data is huge and extraction and explanation of the same cannot be done effortlessly. Most of the data collected is unstructured and not authentic, so you need to be wise to catch the correct characteristics at the right time.

People who can perform this extraction in a functional manner and make sense of it are called, Data Scientist or Data Analysts. The competencies that help them in this task are, sound knowledge of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics.

The job of a data scientist is not only extracting data and analysing it, but to clean the data in such a manner that they can also predict and forecast trends for an assigned business, based on certain hypothesis or conditions. And that is the uniqueness they get to their job, the ability to accurately pre-process data and predict and forecast, sets one data analyst apart from the other.

A career in big data has become a dream choice for most job seekers these days, there is a lot that an organisation can achieve with the right application of data science. Some companies have identified this, and are either training their internal staff on the skills required to perform the job, while others are not yet too open to hire a full time resource. Although that day is not too far when the position of a data analyst will become imperative in every organisation.

If you are planning to enter the data science industry to make a great career in big data, then you need to adapt and acquire certain competencies and expertise in data analytics related tools, in addition to the above mentioned prerequisites. For example, programming languages, like R, and Python, SAS, a working knowledge of Machine Learning, and Predictive analysis. Also a sound knowledge in the industry you plan to work for, e.g., healthcare, or IT, Education etc.., will be an added advantage.

There is a huge gap between the demand and available resources in the field of data science, hence making a career shift in this direction would be wise and also lucrative, recent researchers have suggested that a data scientist earns more than experienced engineers. Clearly, this is a field with huge potential.

Do take up certifications, that will further assist you to springboard yourself in the field of data science.



