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Showing posts from December, 2015

Is Data Science a Buzzword? aka: My first Coursera Course

Data science and data scientists are all the rage right now in the information technology space. Every company wants one; every job candidate touts they are one. But what actually does that mean to companies and potential employees? I decided to take a course on data science to see if I could find out! My co-worker, Gabriella Melki, recommended the Coursera Data Science specialization by John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The entire specialization contains a set of 9 courses, but you can take each one individually. I started with the first course, called "The Data Scientist's Toolbox". Over the four week timeframe, I was able to view lectures and perform the assignments at my own pace. I've listed below my thoughts on the course and what I learned about data science. Week 1: Introduction to Data Science Data science is about data , specifically about answering questions, and science , following a method to discover an answer. A data scientist is the