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Ask HN: Retraining into data science?

6 points by eli_gottlieb ↗ HN
How can someone with statistics and science knowledge retrain into data science? A close friend of mine has an MSc degree in plant ecology but found she enjoyed working with statistics, and has heard there are more jobs available in data science than biology.

4 comments

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mattxxx
Let me preface this with my background: mathematician, software engineer, and statistical programmer. Doing this way before the data science hype.

Regarding your friend, it's possible, but - right now - data science is more closely related to implementation than interpretation of results.

Maybe your friend is looking for something more similar to a Quantitative Analysis position?

It would probably be easier to extend stats and science knowledge into a statistical analysis domain, rather than practical programming, neural networks, database algebras, computational complexity, etc.

Good luck though!

eli_gottlieb
I myself am a computer scientist with only a fuzzy knowledge of the precise meaning of "data science". "Quantitative Analysis" is probably more the right idea.