Workers are resigning in record numbers and many are making career changes. That’s hard to do! Early in a career change, you often don’t have sufficient knowledge of your new field or what’s required to excel in it. This gets more challenging if the field you’re breaking into is truly interdisciplinary.
Take data science, for example. Data science is fundamentally a computer science field built upon other knowledge bases that aren’t necessarily a part of computer science. And so, to become a data scientist, you’ll need to grow your knowledge beyond programming and mathematics.
So let’s consider 10 skills that every successful data scientist needs.
10 Key Data Science Skills
- A Curious Mind
- A Passion for Learning
- Strong Collaboration
- Clear Communication
- Compelling Storytelling
- The Ability to Adapt
- Business Acumen
- Structured Thinking
- Data Ethics
Although all these skills are essential, the degree of their importance obviously varies based on your exact role responsibilities and the nature of your current project.
1. A Curious Mind
Okay, this is more of a trait than a skill — but it’s the most important thing on the list! If you’re going to be a data scientist, you need to be curious. Data science is the process of shaping, transforming and telling stories through data sets.
As a data scientist, you’ll always need to question why things happen; you will need to wonder why some events affect that data more than others, ask a lot of questions about your data and its behavior to fully understand it, and be able to utilize it to predict future events (not to mention make optimal decisions!). Intellectual curiosity is the driving force behind all great data scientists.
2. A Passion for Learning…Efficiently
Data science is an ever-evolving field so, as a data scientist, you always need to be in learning mode. A passion for learning goes hand to hand with having a curious mind, and together they make a great contribution to helping you become a better data scientist.
You not only need a passion for learning, but a passion for learning efficiently. The amount of knowledge you need to obtain as a data scientist can be overwhelming, so knowing how to learn new skills and tools faster can make a big difference in your career.
3. Strong Collaboration
Being a great collaborator means being a team player. When you’re a data scientist, you’ll probably be a part of a team and each of you will work on a specific aspect of the project. As a group, you’ll need to get feedback and develop possible solutions together to build a solid project.
Sometimes you’ll need to build on other team members’ work, so you need to know how to work well with others. This, of course, connects to having strong, efficient communication skills.
4. Clear Communication
When a data scientist gets a new project, they’…….
Source: https://builtin.com/data-science/data-science-skills