We all want to pursue a career that we are passionate about, love to do, and will help us make a decent living. In recent years, with the expansion of the use of technology in our lives, jobs in tech have increased exponentially all over the world. Most of these jobs offer good benefits and often have higher pay than most other fields.
And with the continuous development of technology, new jobs will continue to be created and become in demand. That’s why jobs in tech have always seemed very attractive for anyone considering a career change or for students when choosing their career paths.
Although jobs in tech do have a lot of advantages, from pay to a variety of work and the possibility to work remotely, a tech career is definitely not for everyone. One of the most famous tech career paths is data science, a field that is as broad as it is important for today’s world. Over the past decade, both people pursuing a career in data science and the number of data science tools have increased explosively.
Over this decade, millions of people studied data science, whether through online courses or by getting a degree in the field. The premise and benefits of being a data scientist continue to attract people today and will do so in the near future. But, one question that all these people asked themselves – me included – is, "Is data science the career path for me?".
Whether or not a field pays well and is essential in the world doesn’t help you decide to get into this field as pursuing it as a career. Data science is not different, and it is not the correct path for everyone. In this article, I will propose 6 questions you can ask yourself to have an impression of whether or not you will like having a career in data science.
Question 1: Do you have a curious mind?
Let’s start with the most important question in my opinion, "Do you have a curious mind?". Do you like to solve puzzles, understand why things are the way they are and how they became like this? Do you find yourself asking "why" when you’re faced with interesting findings or circumstances?
That’s a good sign that data science could be a potential field for you. In data science, the curiosity of the data scientist can make a lot of difference when they examine that data. This curiosity will lead them to ask the right questions, which will lead to better analysis and hence better decision making.
But, if your answer to this question is "no," "I don’t really care why things are the way they are, or why people do the things they do." Then pursuing data science could be a little challenging for you.
Question 2: Are you okay with learning new things always?
Tech is an ongoing field; it keeps evolving and developing, there’s not one technical thing that has been fixed through the years. If you are considering a career in tech in general, and data science in particular, you need to be ready to always keep up with the latest in the field and be willing always to be learning.
Learning new tools, new algorithms, new programming languages, tackle new problems, come up with new solutions. There will always be a new thing to learn or a new problem to solve in tech. So, if you love learning and explore new options, you’re okay with never knowing everything about your field. Then maybe data science is the field for you.
Question 3: Are you a patient person?
Patience is important in many aspects of life; it is defiantly an essential key to success. But in data science, in particular, patience is essential, especially in the data gathering, cleaning, and analysis phase of any project. When a data scientist is given a new dataset to explore and analyze, the need to examine it, check if it is structured or not, and be patient in using different visualizations to understand it better.
You will also need patience when you’re training your model before you apply it to the data, patience dealing with the flood of new tools released almost every day. But, being a patient person can take you far in data science or any other tech field.
Question 4: Do you enjoy working with other people?
Being a data scientist is not a solo role; you will need to work with different people with different backgrounds all the time. Perhaps the most obvious people interaction in data science is client-data scientist interaction. In addition, most data science projects aim to improve some aspects of business models.
So, as a data scientist, you will work with people from a business background, with other data scientists, graphic designers, and even writers, to help them use data to make better decisions and take their business further. If you like working closely with people from different backgrounds, sometimes in different countries, then data science may be the career path for you.
Question 5: Do you like to challenge yourself intellectually?
This question directly connects to the one we asked before about being hungry to learn new things. But aside from learning new things, data science is one of the most intellectually challenging yet very satisfying fields. So to get into data science, you will need to learn many things that won’t seem connected at first.
You will need to learn programming, maths, statistics, visualizations, business, decision-making, and problem-solving. You will need to challenge yourself to understand a bit of many fields to excel in data science. This is probably one of the reasons many would back off getting into data science, but if you’re like me, it could be the reason to get into the field.
Question 6: Can you communicate complex ideas easily?
The last question – for now – is, do you like to communicate complex terms easily? Can you take a complex concept, simplify it effectively and explain it to someone with a different background than you? Can you explain it to a kid? To an older?
Science communications play a big role in data science; as we just saw, in data science, you will need to work with different people, all with different knowledge bases, and you will need to explain to them your work process in a way that will make sense to them. If you like to explain complex things easily, and like to develop creative ways to do so, then data science may be the correct field for you.
Final Thoughts
Choosing a career path is not an easy decision; it needs to be done carefully and needs a lot of research and considerations. But, recently, jobs in tech have been the attraction of many people as a career path for their many advantages when it comes to income, location, and importance in life.
One of the tech Careers that many people consider these days is data science. Data science is a very wide career path covering many roles that mix tech, maths, statistics, and science communications. It is a great field for some people who like to solve specific problems and are okay with being continuously learning.
But, as interesting as Data Science can be, it is certainly not a field for everyone. So the question now is, how do you decide if data science is the career for you? How can you tell if pursuing this field will lead to satisfaction and happiness in your professional life?
These questions are not direct to answer and don’t have a fixed answer. However, there are ways you can tell if data science is the correct career path for you. In this article, I took you over the questions I asked myself before I got into data science, which made me realize that I would be fulfilled having a career in this field. All I hope is, they help you make your decision as well.