data science scholarship

Bertelsmann Udacity Data Science Scholarship Summarily

 

What is Data Science?

Data Science is an interdisciplinary field that brings together tools, processes, and systems to extract insights from data. It involves concepts from a variety of fields, ranging from mathematics/statistics to computer science and programming to machine learning, through to
visualization and presentation. At its core, Data Science involves using automated methods to analyze massive amounts of data and to extract knowledge from them.

Who needs Data Science capabilities?

Data is everywhere. The amount of data we create is going to increase exponentially in the years ahead. The ability to analyze this data and derive the right business decisions will be crucial for competitive advantages in the future. Everyone will need to have some level of comfort with data,
and some ability to distill insights related to their business or role. Executives, managers, marketers, analysts … almost everyone will be surrounded by data in their work. Data Science brings together a foundation in statistics, the technology to analyze data, and the business
strategy to ask the right questions and form insights from data. Depending on their role and strengths, individuals may focus on different components of Data Science, but they will undoubtedly benefit from learning more about it.

What are typical job duties?

The skills and knowledge of a data scientist are required in a variety of roles. Here are a few things data scientists will likely be doing:
• Collecting large amounts of unsorted data and transforming it into a more usable format.
• Solving business-related problems using data-driven techniques.
• Working with a variety of programming languages, including SAS, R, and Python.
• Staying on top of analytical techniques such as machine learning, deep learning and text analytics.
• Communicating and collaborating with both IT and business.
• Looking for order and patterns in data, as well as spotting trends that can help a business’s bottom line

What is the “Udacity Data Science Scholarship Program”?

Together with Udacity, Bertelsmann is investing in a scholarship program to provide job-relevant training, specifically for Data Science and analytics. The scholarship program consists of 15,000 seats for the Challenge Course “Intro to Descriptive Statistics”, as well as 1,500 seats (the top 10% of all 15,000 scholarship recipients) for one full Udacity Nanodegree program. The top 10% scholarship recipients will be assigned to one of the three Nanodegree programs: “Data Foundations”, “Business Analyst” and “Data Analyst”.

How does this scholarship program work?

 

 

First thoughts

I was so grateful that on May 2, I received an email confirming that I would be a part of the Data Science Scholarship Program powered by Bertelsmann.
I see this as a good opportunity to get in the Data Science field, learn the foundations and be part of real projects. And why not, this also can help to get prepared for future interviews.
I have to admit that at the beginning I was a little bit worried about how I was going to survive the course but I was determined to do it and not make the same mistakes that cost me a place in the second phase of the Front-End Nanodegree Program so I started learning, and it has been an amazing journey so far. I am not only learning data science, but I am learning to communicate more effectively with others and be a part of the community as best as I can. All the participants are so helpful and supportive so it’s hard for me to think that only 1500 of us will move forward.
I wish all of my “data science colleagues” good luck and hope that this will be just the beginning for us!