One of the most difficult aspects of self-learning any new skill or technology is the feeling of loneliness. When I was learning data science at the beginning, I felt lost, not because of the technical terms I needed to learn, but because I felt like I am going through this journey all alone. I knew there were others out there going through the same journey as me; I just didn’t know any.
Going through something new alone is not always the best option; that’s why some people tend to go for bootcamps or online/ offline classes to learn something new. When you’re learning with others, you learn more than just the technical contents; you learn most from others’ experiences and insights. You will learn more from your peers than you would go through that journey alone.
Once I found a Community to help me, support me, and inspire me through my learning journey, the journey became much easier. I ended up with more than just technical knowledge; I ended up with friends, similar-minded people, and a network that helped shape the data scientist I am today.
In this article, I will share with you some amazing, supportive, and welcoming Data Science communities Slack workspaces so you can communicate, learn and make friends with data scientists from all over the world. These 6 Slack workspaces will provide you the sense of community and belonging you need to succeed in your data science learning journey.
№1: Open Data Science Community
The Open Data Science Community (ODSC) is more than just a Slack workspace; it’s an organization for everything in data science. They hold data science conferences all over the world, publish posts and videos about different data science topics and keep you up-to-date with the latest in data science research.
Moreover, the ODSC offers many free webinars regularly to attend and learn something new or refresh your current knowledge. And if you missed some, you can find the recording on the ODSC cloud. You can join the ODSC through this link.
№2: Women Who Code Data Science Chapter
Women Who Code is one of the largest communities for women in tech out there. Their main mission is to help women excel in tech fields and pursue successful careers. Women Who Code is a very active community with various conferences and webinars a month through different technical-focused chapters.
One of the most active chapters of the Women Who Code is the Data Science Chapter. This chapter offers many webinars, support, job boards, and opportunities for data scientists. Despite the name, the Women Who Code organization welcomes anyone to join in their events and make the best of them. You can join the data science chapter from this link.
№3: Kaggle Noobs
Kaggle is with no doubt one of the most well-known collections of datasets and codes for data science out there; no one doesn’t know what Kaggle is. Kaggle offers many courses to teach you the basics of data science. The community of Kaggle consists of over 6 million data scientists all over the world.
Kaggle also offers smaller, more focused communities for different data science topics such as NLP, visualization, Machine Learning, and neural networks. You can also join the Kaggle competitions and prove your data science skills. You can join the Kaggle Slack community through this link.
№4: AI Researchers and Enthusiasts
Data science is a tech field, and any tech field is always undergoing new research and advancement every day. As data scientists, an essential part of our role is to stay up-to-date with recent research in your particular topic of data science. After all, you can’t use an outdated model or a non-inclusive dataset.
The AI researchers and enthusiasts are a community of over 6k researchers, and enthusiasts joined together to discuss the latest advances in the field of artificial intelligence. You can join the discussion and stay up-to-date from this link.
№5: DataTalks.Club
DataTalks.Club is the place to go if you’re looking for a place to learn more about applied machine learning or about machine learning and engineering in general. If you want to ask any question you have about machine learning’s core technical concepts or how to land a job in machine learning.
Moreover, DataTalks.Club offers weekly events about all aspects, from beginner machine learning events to advanced concepts and how to look for a role and prepare for the interview. You can join the DataTalks.Club Slack community through this link.
№6: TWIML Community
The TWIML Community is a network of machine learning, deep learning, and AI researchers and enthusiasts from all over the world. The TWIML community offers many articles, courses, and competition that helps you get into and excel in the data science field. They also offer a great podcast discussion of various topics with professionals from the field.
Moreover, the TWIML community organizes study groups for many popular data science topics, such as AI, deep learning, and NLP. Through the community’s Slack workspace, you can discuss all topics you need with smart, capable people. You can join the TWIML community through this link.
Final Thoughts
I would argue that one of the best parts about getting into a new field or learning a new skill – aside from the new career prospects – is the chance to meet new people. New people to befriend new people to get inspired by and new people to grew our professional network.
But sometimes, meeting people is not the easiest thing to do, especially if you’re learning that new skill in the middle of a pandemic. Then, your options for meeting people get very limited, if not scarce. But that’s where Technology comes to our aid; it allows us to "meet" people that we wouldn’t have crossed paths otherwise.
One of the best ways to find a community for your new skill or field is Slack. In this article, I proposed to you 6 outstanding data science Slack communities that are sure to give you the support, inspiration, and sense of community you need to go through your learning journey and excel in your career path.