Lately, there has been an explosion of interest in Data Science, mainly due to the appealing job prospects of someone who has the relevant know-how. It is easy, unfortunately, to get into the state of complacency whereby data science become all too familiar and you find yourself working the same methods and the same processes in general when dealing with the problems you are asked to solve. This situation can be quite toxic though, even if it’s unlikely someone will tell you so. After all, as long as you deliver what you have to deliver no one cares, right? Unfortunately, no. If you stop evolving as a data scientist, chances are that you’ll become obsolete in a few years, while your approach to the problems at hand will cease to be as effective. Besides, the field evolves as do the challenges we as data scientists have to face. The remedy to all this is exploring data science with a renewed sense of enthusiasm, something akin to what is referred to as “beginner’s mind” in the Zen tradition. Of course, enthusiasm doesn’t come about on its own after you’ve experienced it once. You need to create the conditions for it and what better way to do that than exploring data science further. This exploration can be in more breadth (i.e. additional aspects of the craft, including but not limited to new methods), and in more depth (i.e. understand the inner workings of various algorithms and the variants they may have). Research in the field can go a long way when it comes to both of these exploration strategies. It’s important to note that you don’t need to publish a paper in order to do proper research. In fact, you can do perfectly adequate research with just a computer and a few datasets, as long as you know how. It’s also good to keep the breadth and depth in balance when you are exploring data science. Going too much in breadth can lead you to have a more superficial knowledge of the field while going too much in depth can make you overspecialized. What you do first, however, is totally up to you. Also, it’s important to use reliable resources when exploring the field, since nowadays it seems that everyone wants to be a data science content creator, without having the essential training or educational mindset. A good rule of thumb is to stick to content that has undergone extensive editings, such as the stuff made available through a publisher, particularly one specializing in data related books and videos. Whatever the case, it’s always good to explore data science in an enjoyable manner too. Find a dataset you are interested in, before starting to apply some obscure method. This way the whole process will become more manageable and perhaps even fulfilling. Fortunately, there is no shortage of datasets out there, so you have many options. Happy exploration!
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Zacharias Voulgaris, PhDPassionate data scientist with a foxy approach to technology, particularly related to A.I. Archives
December 2022
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