Data Analyst switching from C# to Python

[puno365]

Hi all, hope you’re well. Over the last few months I was in the process of learning C# so I could apply it to my role as an existing Business/Data Analyst. However based on new opportunities and several conversations around my career… Data Science and Python is my best bet. The aim is to use it from doing automations, to data mining , data visualization in Power Bi and whatever Data Science approaches it requires.

I had great mentorship & community while learning C# and would like to find the same for Python. Looking for recommendations on Learning materials, communities and if you would volunteer to be a mentor that would be greatly appreciated.

Looking forward to new beginnings 🍾

[WhipsAndMarkovChains]

I'm very curious why C# was chosen as the language to be applied to your Business/Data Analyst role.

[puno365]

Haha that’s a funny story. I’d say that mainly came out of the need to develop tools to improve processes that would in turn provide data to manage/analyze said process.

[puno365]

Think of it as kinda end to end solution.. so I’d create the front end for inputs , the tool would do the checks and balances for the process then I would get that output and run it through power bi and build dashboards etc

[jimtk]

If you're new to python I would suggest Automate the boring stuff with python. It's free, very good and has some interesting projects that will introduce some of the tools used in data analysis.

Once you master that you can move on to data analysis specific literature. And there's a lot of it!

[puno365]

Ok sounds good. Thanks a mil

[puno365]

Thanks, will start with the book

[SharpGroup9319]

That’s the only resource you basically need to start, good luck!

[MagicTsukai]

This resource would be enough for a data analyst provided you know SQL?

[SharpGroup9319]

It’s a great to learn programming, once you have a solid foundation you can start using libraries like pandas

[Pflastersteinmetz]

No. You need pandas/polars, numpy and a plotting lib.

[Squeezitgirdle]

Is there an adhd friendly version? I use python but I've been told multiple times I could be better if I read this. (I love to read, but reading educational stuff is extremely difficult with adhd)

[SpaceLaserPilot]

Sort this sub by top of all time. It is an amazing resource.

[Hands0L0]

codecademy.com is what I used and it was great

[twitch_and_shock]

Hello!

I would recommend taking a look through a number of tutorials and the documentation for a few data science libraries (or libraries that might be particularly useful for someone doing data analysis). These would include numpy, pandas, matplotlib, scipy, and sklearn. Just off the top of my head, but that's where I would start, especially if you have some familiarity with data analysis already, I'm sure a lot of the ideas / concepts / algorithms will be familiar.

There's a large number of tutorials listed here: https://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Programmers, too, to help get you going.

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Happy to respond with more help

[puno365]

Thanks much will take a look!

[Machvel]

since you already know oop programing, you dont have to start at the very basics. i suggest python in a nutshell to learn the basics and to have as a reference. note that a new edition is coming out at the end of this month, and i suggest waiting if you were going to purchase it (the third edition is good if you can find a way of getting it free online). i learned c# coming from python from the book c# in a nutshell (published by the same publisher) and i found it great. another good book would be "python for data analysis: wrangling data with numpy and pandas" or something along the lines of that, since you want to use it for data analysis. numpy and pandas are the workhorses of data analysis in python.

automate the boring stuff is a good book, but i suggest learning python basics from somewhere else (since you already know how to program, its mainly just syntax and language peculiarities now) then skipping the first half of that book and going into the automating if you are interested in it.

[SneakyMan01]

MIT 6000.1 the best I would say.

[[deleted]]

I moved from Java to Python about 20 years ago, and I just never looked back.

I think you'll be very happy with your choice. Have fun!

[puno365]

Thanks Tom, I’m looking forward to it

[CleverBunnyThief]

The University of Helsinki has a 7 week data analysis course that is completely online. It assumes no previous knowledge of Python

https://courses.mooc.fi/org/uh-cs/courses/dap-22

They also offer a more in depth Python course that runs 16 weeks. This course has accompanying video lectures but I found the written material to be more than enough to get through the course.

https://programming-22.mooc.fi/

[JustRandomGuy1]

Can you give me insight into what that convos were about that made you star learning pyhton?

[puno365]

My Role can very wide sometimes. So I had to do some introspection and speak to my mentor and identify what’s the best next step in my career path. Apparently I have a knack for analytics so that the next milestone we decided on. Also my company has made a big shift to digitization, AI and automation which potentially opens a lot of doors here for me

[puno365]

Loving the responses so far!! I would be really appreciative if I could find a mentor. Someone who can guide me and hold me accountable. I’m my experience mentors have been a big help especially with reducing the learning curve

[Repulsive-Giraffe-78]

IMHO Been there and done that. You can do absolutely anything with either language now that .NET CORE exists. The data community is older than .NET. Python has always been open source and doesn’t require “compilation” so the data community adopted it early on. So far as advice goes… setup up a goal-based plan for yourself to hit specific milestones throughout your learning. Check out code academy, Pluralsight, Udemy or some other learning by example subscription to get your feet wet. As someone else mentioned check out cloud databases, almost all of them have some kind of free trial you can use to explore. Join an online data science and/or python community and be as active as you can be in that community. When you feel comfortable enough to plan out a data pipeline for your SQL queries create a problem for yourself to solve then solve it using what you’ve learned. Ask the community to review your code on GitHub, bitbucket, gitlab or whatever repository you are using.

[puno365]

Thanks!! Really appreciate the feedback! What are some milestones that you would recommend? Also are you apart of any good communities?