Ask HN: How to get into Data Science as a hobby?

3 points by jxm262 10y ago ↗ HN

I've been programming for about 4 years now (full-stack web) and had a couple previous years doing Database related work (PLSQL, Oracle apps).

After taking a few coursera classes on the subject I'm don't know where to turn now. I had a few classes in college which touched on this (data mining, stats, etc.) but never had any real world projects.

I'm curious..

1. Where can I find side projects to work on which I could apply my beginner knowledge of the field. (end goal to learn more with practical work)

2. How can I use my background in web development to help advance in this field?

Any advice is appreciated

1 comment

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beamatronic 10y ago ↗

Data is all around you. Find a data set about a subject that you are passionate about. I mean passionate in the sense that you have BURNING questions about it. Let's say you are into movies. You can find data sets of movies. I would pose these queries to you as exercises:

1. What is the average length of all movies?

2. Here are some buckets: Movies that are under one hour, movies that are between 1 and three hours, and movies that are three hours or longer. Tell me how many movies are in each bucket.

3. I want to know if movies are getting longer or shorter over time. Find out and show me a graph.

edit: formatting