Take-off with Data Science
What is Data Science?
A simple Google search will lead you to millions of links.
But what exactly is data science? How is it useful?
If you ever crossed paths with these questions, read along!
Data Science
Data science has drawn a huge popularity after Harvard named… yeah, you know. So what is all this hype about? What exactly does a data scientist do?
Data Science, simply put, is a loosely defined term for “a multidisciplinary amalgamate of data deduction (ooh, Sherlock vibes much?), algorithm development and various technologies deployed for solving real-world complex business problems by an analytical approach.”
Wow! Did you get more confused than you already were?
Imagine a scientist (the one who wears a white coat), in a laboratory adding some chemicals, removing some compounds, forming new ones and telling the world about it. That’s it. Replace chemicals with ‘data’. Scientists ‘play’ with chemicals, data scientists play with data, but don’t wear white coats.
How is it useful?
Devices, organizations and websites today are generating shi‘p’ loads of data every day, neigh, every second. To harness this BIG data, we need a scientific framework to make informed decisions for solving complex problems and predicting outcomes based on this ‘historical’ data.
How does your Apple Watch know you have an abnormal heart-rate? Have you noticed how many times the Apple Watch records your HR in a day? Yes, you get the sense of the data size, but based on your ‘normal’ or historical data, it can tell you that something is wrong. Just like it compares the current data with the past and is able to make a decision to inform you, data scientists take aid from the past data to predict the most likely ‘future’. In a nutshell, this is what data scientists do.
They are scientists, detectives and future tellers!
Hope this article answers your questions related to the basics of data science. Stay tuned for more.
Author: Rohan Kalikar | Mar 15, 2021
Helpful links:
There are some great podcasts which might help you dive more into data science.
The “towards data science” Podcast is my favourite!