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The Many Paths To Data Science

The individuals interviewed describe different educational and career paths that led them to data science, though data science was not always a defined field when they started their careers. Some studied statistics, business, engineering or other quantitative fields and discovered an interest in working with large datasets. Others took roles involving data analysis before data science emerged as a distinct discipline. Overall, the interviews illustrate how people from different backgrounds have entered the field as data science has evolved and grown over time.

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Joven Castillo
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75 views1 page

The Many Paths To Data Science

The individuals interviewed describe different educational and career paths that led them to data science, though data science was not always a defined field when they started their careers. Some studied statistics, business, engineering or other quantitative fields and discovered an interest in working with large datasets. Others took roles involving data analysis before data science emerged as a distinct discipline. Overall, the interviews illustrate how people from different backgrounds have entered the field as data science has evolved and grown over time.

Uploaded by

Joven Castillo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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[SOUND] [MUSIC] Data science didn't really

exist when I was growing up. It's not something that I ever woke up and said, I
want to be a data
scientist when I grow up. No, it didn't exist. I didn't know I would be
working in data science. >> When I grew up, there isn't
that field called data science. And I think it's really new. >> Data science didn't
exist until 2009,
2011. Someone like DJ Patil or
Andrew Gelman coined the term. Before that, there was statistics. And I didn't want
to be any of those. I wanted to be in business. And then I found data science
a heck of a lot more interesting. >> I studied statistics,
that's how I started. I went through many different stages in
my life where I wanted to be a singer and then a doctor. And then I realized that
I was good at math. So I chose an area that was
focused on quantitative analysis. And from then I do think that
I wanted to work with data. Not necessarily data science
as it's known today. >> The first time that I had
contact with data science, when I was my first year as
a mechanical engineering. And strategic consulting firms,
they use data science to make decisions. So it was my first contact
with data science. >> I had a complicated problem
that I needed to solve, and the usual techniques that we had at
the time couldn't help with that problem. >> I graduated with a math degree
in the worst possible time, right after the economic crisis, and you
actually had to be useful to get a job. So I went and got a degree in statistics.
And then I worked enough jobs that
were called data scientist that I suddenly became one. >> My undergraduate degree
was in
business, and I majored in politics, philosophy, and economics. And then I did a
master's
in business analytics at New York University at
the Stern School of Business. When I left my undergrad,
the first company I joined, it turned out that they were analyzing electronic point
of sale data for retail manufacturers. And what we were doing was data science. But
we only really started
using that term much later. In fact, I'd say four or five years ago is
when we started calling it analytics and data science. >> I had several options for
my internship here in Canada. And one of the options was
to work with data science. I used to work with project development. But I think
that was a good choice. And then I start my
internship with data science. >> I'm a civil engineer by training,
so all engineers work with data. I would say the conventional use of data science
in my life started
with transportation research. I started building large models trying
to forecast traffic on streets, trying to determine congestion and greenhouse
gas emissions or tailpipe emissions. So I think that's where my start was. And I
started building these models
when I was a graduate student at the University of Toronto. Started working with
very large data sets,
looking at household samples of, say, 150,000 households
from half a million trips. And that, too,
I'm speaking from mid 90s when this was supposed to be a very large data set,
but not in today's terms. But that's how I started. I continued working with it.
And then I moved to McGill University
where I was a professor of transportation engineering. And I built even bigger data
models
that involved data and analytics. And so I would say, yes, transportation
research brought me to data science. [MUSIC]

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