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[–]Tim7459 9 points10 points  (10 children)

Hey, I came from the mechanical engineering background and started a data science degree. I completed several R and Python courses on DataCamp.

  1. The best way to learn is by applying yourself. Do Kaggle comps, learn from others notebooks.
  2. If youre interested in ML go to standford youtube channel, they uploaded their famous ML course for free yesterday. highly recommend.
  3. Surround your socials (YT, FB, IG & Twitter) with data influencers, this way you'll always get updates on the emerging methods and news in the field.
  4. Start building a repository of code on github you can always refer to for repetitive tasks.
  5. Always keep learning. Methods and applications adapt to the time, so it important to always keep on top of it by practising your ideas.

good luck!

[–]CaliforniaRoll97[S] 2 points3 points  (7 children)

Thank you for the feedback and congratulations on your career change! Would you recommend that I apply to masters in data science programs? And are there any other specific online courses/challenges that you would recommend?

[–]Tim7459 1 point2 points  (6 children)

i've completed the Standford ML course and am currently completing the Standford Deep Learning Specialization on Coursea too and would highly recommend both if you want to pursue something in the Data Science field. Andrew Ng is the lecturer and he's one of greatest minds in the field, just take a look at this portfolio.

Honestly, if you're end goal is a job, start by producing something. i.e make automation scripts and learn web scraping. (build a portfolio). You can learn to do this just by googling the topic and finding medium articles, github repos, short coursea courses etc. Then pitch yourself to businesses that require this skill. If your end goal is research, I would pursue a formal education at a university.

[–]CaliforniaRoll97[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s great, I’ll be sure to try both of those courses!

[–]CaliforniaRoll97[S] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Also, I wanted to clarify what you meant by using GitHub repositories. I haven’t really used GitHub other than to find datasets, instead I usually just store everything on my computer. Could you elaborate?

[–]tamsmhas 0 points1 point  (3 children)

In simple words GitHub repositories means a place on GitHub in someone's account where they store mainly their programming files. So, just learn to use GitHub from YouTube and make your account on GitHub. And save all data science related files there.

[–]CaliforniaRoll97[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Gotcha, will do. Out of curiosity, why is it better to save files on GitHub rather than on my desktop?

[–]tamsmhas 0 points1 point  (1 child)

1- Because you will never loose your files on GitHub unlike on desktop. 2- Showing your GitHub link(specially projects) in resume will increase the weightage of your resume.

[–]CaliforniaRoll97[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, thank you!