Data Scientist (Python)

I am learning at dataquest, data science track. I have just finished basic python programming and some way to intermediate python programming and going forward to finish the data science track. The way dataquest is delivering the lessons are based on the principles of learning by doing, no videos or ppts. The learners are interacting with the content through coding.  So far, from what I have seen, the missions are based on real life problems. For these real-life problems and challenges they give us a guideline to go through and I believe this is the best way for adults like me to learn.

Des.

I've been using Dataquest for about 2 months and it's been a great experience thus far. My experience with the support team, to the various resources available on Dataquest, the "learn by doing" teaching, and the ability to learn at your own pace. Additionally, seems quite in dept compared to the boot camp I'm currently enrolled in. One knock on Dataquest compared to bootcamps the lack of career support if you are happening to be switching careers. They have supplementary sources on their blog on how to best position yourself for a career in data analytics though.

TL;DR: The Dataquest curriculum is well curated and laser focused for maximum value and efficiency. You progress at your own pace along a clear and logical path, without wasting time on mind-numbing instructional videos or searching around the internet to figure out what to study next. The entire learning experience is integrated in a single platform where you use interesting real-world data to immediately apply and practice each new skill at every single baby step along the way. Larger guided projects, interspersed frequently throughout the curriculum, allow you to synthesize concepts and solidify your knowledge while also building up a portfolio of projects to showcase your new skills.

The details:

As an environmental scientist, I've been using Python the past few years for data crunching and scientific computing. The data analysis parts of my job are by far my favourite, so now I'm wanting to transition into a career in data science. I was looking for an online course to help me level up my skills in the following ways:

a) work on projects with data from a wide variety of domains outside my little niche of academic research,

b) add some new tips and tricks to my Python toolbox, and

c) learn the essential concepts and skills in areas where I have minimal or no experience (such as databases, APIs, and machine learning).

Dataquest is the perfect learning experience to accomplish all of these objectives! I could have cobbled something together from a mishmash of free internet resources, as I did when I was initially teaching myself Python, but that was a very time-consuming and inefficient experience I did not want to repeat. When I discovered Dataquest and started trying it out, I could tell that it was exactly what I needed to make the most of my limited free time for studying. Below are some highlights of my experience and impressions so far.

The curriculum is well curated and laser focused for maximum value and efficiency. The Dataquest team has done an outstanding job of identifying the knowledge a data scientist needs (including crucial non-Python skills such as SQL, the command line, and Git), and putting together a thorough and focused curriculum. You learn the material you need to know--always through the lens of its application to data science--without getting sidetracked into rabbit holes and irrelevant tangents.

The entire learning experience is contained within one platform where you use interesting real-world data to immediately practice each new skill at every single baby step along the way. You don't have to constantly disrupt your flow and waste time bouncing back and forth between videos, reading materials, online interactive exercises, and coding on your own local computer - everything is all integrated into one seamless experience in the Dataquest UI. 

And can I get an amen to ZERO instructional videos? For me personally, instructional videos are usually an epic waste of time. I find that the material is always presented either too slowly (and there's no way to save time by skimming it as you would when reading), or too quickly so that I'm having to constantly pause to scribble notes or look up things that weren't explained thoroughly enough. On top of all that, by the time a video ends, I've usual forgotten at least half of what I've "learned" because I wasn't practicing any of it along the way. The Dataquest approach is sooooooo much better! Read a bit, do a bit, read a bit, do a bit, and so on, so that you're constantly practicing and reinforcing the concepts. I think videos can be great for ideas, inspiration, and the occasional walk-through of some finicky process, but not as the primary means of teaching an extensive curriculum, so I was absolutely thrilled to discover an online course that does not rely on instructional videos.

You progress at your own pace along a clear and logical path. The curriculum is structured as an overarching path broken down into a logical progression of individual courses, each of which is broken down into smaller missions and projects comprised of a series of about 5-15 short steps. This structure makes it really easy for me to learn the material at my own pace, within the constraints of a busy and ever-changing schedule. Even if I only have a spare 20 mins for a study session, I can still complete a few bite-sized pieces and actually accomplish something worthwhile in that short time. When I get super busy and decide to take a week or two off of studying to focus on other priorities, the Dataquest curriculum structure makes it very easy to quickly jump back in after a hiatus.

You build a project portfolio as you're learning. Larger guided projects, interspersed frequently throughout the curriculum, accomplish a dual objective of allowing you to synthesize concepts and solidify your knowledge while also building up a portfolio of projects to showcase your new skills. For me, these projects are also a great way to accomplish my objective of working with data from a wide variety of domains outside my field, without having to waste time scouring the internet for random datasets to work with.

One minor comment on projects and portfolios - starting with the very earliest, beginner lessons in the Dataquest curriculum, they encourage you to showcase your projects in a public portfolio for prospective employers to see. While I love the idea of integrating a career-oriented portfolio into the learning experience, I might be a little more cautious about telling students to publicly display some of their very early work before they've learned some key skills such as vectorized operations instead of loops, Pandas instead of vanilla Python for tabular data, etc. Put all your projects on Github, for sure, but you might not want to publicly highlight and/or point people towards your very earliest projects, because you will soon be learning much better (and more industry standard) ways of implementing these analyses. As you progress further into the curriculum, you could always revisit an early project that you enjoyed, update the code with the new skills you've learned, and then highlight the project by pinning the repo on your Github profile. Otherwise, you could just let your early projects gradually descend into obscurity at the bottom of your Github repo list, as you keep adding new ones that better showcase your awesome new skills.

To sum up, my first four months of an annual Dataquest membership have been excellent. I've been learning a lot and enjoying all the fun data and neat projects. The curriculum is top notch and the learning experience is structured to help you progress efficiently and make the most of your time. I highly recommend this course to anyone wanting to learn data science!

Dataquest offers a variety of courses for Data Scientists and Data Engineering. Dataquest gives you a clear path to follow and is a accessible to everyone of all skill levels. The guided projects help you add to your portfolio and allow you to apply what you have learned to something more hands on. I highly reccomend the course to those looking into going into Data Science

If you are a beginner in data science, this is the best place to start your journey towards a wonderful career. Data is the new oil. And by learning Data Science from Dataquest will make sure that you will have a thorough foundation to pursue this career. Now let me get this straight, There is no course on the internet that is going to teach you everything about data science. And that is because data science is a really vast field. It would take years to become expert in it.

What Dataquest does best is that it makes sure that their students have a thorough foundation in data science. That is, if you learn from Dataquest, you will be ready to take on the toughest data science course on the internet. And why is that? It is because unlike other websites, Dataquest never goes easy on their students to make sure that their students develop problem-solving skills which are very crucial in data science.

The best part is the Dataquest community. A very active helping community. No matter what problem you are facing in data science, most of the time you will get a thorough solution from the community. I can assure you that after going through their course you will be completely satisfied with the knowledge you have attained.

Being a Biomedical Scientist, I am currently looking for a career transition where I can be more involved in data driven projects with ML and other cutting edge technologies. My first concern is that I have no background in coding or any data analysis experience with any programming languages. After looking into several online courses about data science, I felt that Dataquest provided the most comprehensive curriculum. What I liked the most about it is that everything I need to know (from basic python, to pandas, ML, statistics, SQL etc.) is set into a logic order into learning paths. This makes the learning experience much more enjoyable as I don't have to worry about knowledge gaps or what skill to learn next.

Their interactive platform allowed me to learn by doing coding exercises in python myself, which is indeed much better (atleasy from my perspective) than watching Pros as they do all the coding. Basically their teaching method consists in explain a concept with diagrams and examples and then make you apply it on ongoing projects. This helped me develop agility writing code and familiarity with Python's backend logic. In addition, they provide challenges and projects where you can test your skills.

Possible improvements:

There are some features that they could add. First, I wish they did some summaries at the end of each module, as it helps students to review as they practise. This is something they seem to be currently working on, as the first couple modules do come with summaries. Hopefully they will have these recaps made for all modules very soon. In their blog, I have also found some cheat-sheets that contain the most used methods and formulas for packaged like numpy and pandas, which is very handy when doing projects.   

I also wish they had videos every now and then. Sometimes, reading all the explanations and diagrams can become a bit boring and tiresome, so in my opinion having some demonstration videos would make the platform so much better, specially videos on "do-along projects" where instructors do projects as they explain their thinking logic.

All in all, I recommend this platform to anyone who is looking to get started into data science or related fields. Their members are very helpful, honest and quick to reply enquiries.

I had an easy semester so started wading into DS in my free time. I had no idea which direction to begin working towards though, so I took a chance on Dataquest. UI is smooth and simple, curriculum is pretty great at setting the ground work for several essential skills. I went in knowing no Python or SQL and not even a year later I'm writing scripts and doing basic database management at work. It's put me near the top of my Deep Learning class as well.

It's definitely not the only resource I use, but it's usually my first step when something new springs up at work or school. In less than a few days you can walk through pretty great intro/moderate/advanced notes and exercises that set you up for figuring things out on your own.

I'll probs renew at least one more year.

A lot of people will say you shouldn't pay for info that's free online, but DataQuest puts lessons and projects in one convenient location. It's worth paying for if you're a busy student or have even a part time job. Even at cost, it's way more affordable than almost all bootcamps.

Learning to become a data scientist

I'm being thought everything I need to know from the ground up so non-computer science background persons can learn data science. The program is well structured so I don't have to worry about what I need to learn next. The cost for the course is much cheaper than the quality of the course

If you are trying to enter into Data Science / Machine Learning world and feel lost like I was - look no further and start with Dataquest. I tried a bunch of different online video educational tools and this one is so far the best one. 

Dataquest Data Scientist path is a great way to learn Data Science for me. I find the interactive form really attractive and convenient. Course is divided into modules small enough that you don't have to spend lots of time on learning continuosly. I tried other approaches to DS before - video courses took too much time on theory, other interactive courses curriculum were less complex than Dataquest. I really recomend this course.

I tried other online learning paths, Dataquest it’s very complete and a great challenge. In my opinion, the best way to learn!

HI all 

I've started the course a few weeks ago and I'm really enoying my learning! Information served in structured and easy to understand way exercises gradually getting more difficult and the curriculum is top notch - everything one would need to get into Data Analysis and Science field. 

I've been on my way to become a data scientist since for a couple of years now. I've been studying on many sites, took several courses on Coursera and even on Udacity. While overall quality of those online courses are pretty much satisfying, I never had a feeling that what I've learnt is enough, so I kept delaying applying to job interviews as data scientist.

What I find great about Dataquest is that this platform is extremely versatile, packed very densely with information and have great opportunities to practice skills that I feel is important to practice. The whole process is semi-self-paced (you are setting your own pace and try to keep up with it, or do not engage in such stuff at all), and I could skip all topics that I already knew (e.g. the basics of Python).

The most important part of studying here is so called "Guided Projects". In those projects I was able to explore various topics on pretty much real data in Jupiter Notebooks, the whole process of going through those projects is absolutely gorgeously structured. In every project I've done for now I felt like I was doing real data science.

For now I'm not finished yet, but judging by the content that I've completed already and the content ahead I think it would be my last data science course before I'll actually build up enough knowledge to go to a job interview as a real data scientist.