My tips and experience to become a quality data scientist
When you become a data scientist, it's a great feeling to know that your days, weeks, and even months of studying and learning have finally paid off.
However, this is just the beginning.
Maybe you don't want to be a data scientist, but you want to be a good data scientist. So, in this article, I would like to explain some of the things you should do to be in the top 1% of data scientists, based on my personal experience and what I have observed from these top tier practitioners.
The idea, made famous by the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, is that 1% improvement each day will lead to a significant deterioration over time.
- 1% improvement every day is 1.01³⁶⁵ ~ 38
- 1% daily decline is 0.99⁹³⁶⁵ ~ 0.026
Making small positive choices every day as a data scientist will further accelerate your progress and propel you into the elite.
Sure, this sounds great on paper, but how do you actually implement this?
Well, the best way is to learn something new every day. No matter how small it may be, if you steadily acquire knowledge every day, it goes without saying that it will be a positive thing in the long run.
Here are some examples to try.
- Learn new data manipulation frameworks using packages like Polars and Spark instead of Pandas.
- Create an alias for a terminal or command line prompt that you use frequently.
- When doing code reviews, ask why someone did something a certain way.
- Work with software engineers to learn IDE productivity tips.
A good way to hold yourself accountable is to write down new things you learned in college…