Our Journey to Become a Data Scientist
Today, we want to tell you how we became a Data Scientist. We both have been the same academic journey. Maybe, because we’re identical twins. Hence, please don’t be surprised that we always speak of “we“.
But how do you become a Data Scientist?
There are different ways to become a Data Scientist. In this article, we’ll present our journey to becoming a Data Scientist. We want to give you tips and tricks based on our experience.
Let us inspire you! Maybe you would also like to become a Data Scientist.
Our childhood and school time
We grew up in a small town in Germany. During our childhood, we do a lot of sports. We played soccer, handball, tennis and table tennis at the club. Even back then, we were eager to learn and wanted to be successful. We have kept this up to the present day.
During our school time, we came into contact with topics such as programming and computer science for the first time. There was a special course for computer science. We also wanted to take part in this. But there was a problem! Most teachers said that computer science had no future and advised us against it.
WHAT?
Yes, you heard right! No future! We listened to the teachers and didn’t take the course. But we already knew at that time that technology is our passion.
Instead, we concentrated on other topics like mathematics, physics, and chemistry. We learned a lot, and it was fun for us too. As a result, we achieved excellent grades in all courses. We were classified as highly talented and could have gone to a private school. But we decided against it.
Our mum and dad supported us during this time because they wanted us to do the “Abitur”. The “Abitur” is the highest German school-leaving qualification. It qualifies you to study at German or European universities.
After our “Abitur”, we decided to go to the university. Surprise! We decided to do a Bachelor in Computer Science. From our point of view, a computer science degree is a good first step towards becoming a data scientist. Our parents don’t have an academic background. So we were the first in the family to study.
Our study time
At the end of 2015, we started our Computer Science journey at the University of Applied Sciences (h_da) in Darmstadt, Germany. The university is part of the European University of Technology and is one of Germany’s leading universities in the field of technology.
In the first two semesters, we worked in the production of an industrial company to earn money. The salary was good, but the working hours were not. We had to work night shifts. We didn’t really like the work, so we looked for a better job.
We performed very well in the mathematics lectures, so the professors wanted to hire us as student assistants. As a student assistant, we taught math students and supervised exams. During this time, we learned how to present concepts clearly. This is also an important quality that a data scientist must have. As a student assistant, you can learn this skill very well. You also learn to take responsibility. If you have the opportunity to work as a student assistant, go for it.
During our study time, we learned a lot about software engineering and databases. But very little about machine learning and AI. We were lucky enough to get to know some Master’s students during our work as student assistants. This Master’s students studied in the Data Science degree program. At this time, we realized that we also wanted to study this in the Master’s degree.
But before that could happen, we had to complete our Bachelor’s degree. In Germany, it is common to do the Bachelor’s thesis together with a company. So we applied to a few companies. Fortunately, we got a few acceptances and were able to choose the company. We chose Accso. Accso is a Software Engineering Consulting Company with locations in Germany and South Africa. We completed our Bachelor’s degree at Accso with excellent grades.
Our excellent performance made it possible for us to do a dual Master’s program in Data Science at Accso. It wasn’t easy for us during the Masters. We had to work full-time alongside our Master’s degree. But we learned a lot during this time. During our studies, we learned the theory and at work, we applied our knowledge directly to real-world projects.
As an aspiring data scientist, you learn best with real-world problems.
We recommend that you immediately apply what you have learned in real-world projects. You should not only work with demo data. Working with real-world data is much more difficult because you have to clean the data first. This step is very complex and takes a lot of time, but it is essential. The cleaner you work in data preparation, the fewer problems you will have later when creating the machine learning model.
We also completed our Master’s degree with an excellent grade. Then, we started working full-time at Accso. There, we have been involved in some exciting industry projects.
Our journey as entrepreneurs
After more than four years at Accso, we decided to take the next step. We have started our own business in the field of data science. Our dream and goal have always been to start our own business. We have also decided to do an MBA in Finance. We want to improve our business skills with our studies.
When we started our own business, we also started creating content on social media. We want to share our learnings with the world. Preparing content such as blog articles or videos is one of the best ways for us to understand complex concepts better. Another advantage is that we can help other people understand concepts better with our content.
On our Tinz Twins Hub, we regularly publish free blog articles on the topics of data science and software engineering. We also write a free AI newsletter that keeps you updated with the latest news from the AI industry every week.
Final words
The path to becoming a data scientist is not easy. To be a good data scientist, you have to be willing to learn. From our point of view, it makes sense to study computer science or data science.
Online courses cannot replace traditional study methods. In our opinion, online courses are a good addition to studying. You shouldn’t just go from tutorial to tutorial. You must apply your knowledge to real-world projects.
We hope we were able to inspire you. The path to becoming a data scientist is not easy, but we believe it is worth it. With this in mind, try to get a bit better every day. The journey is the goal.
Final Tip: The best way to learn new things: Learn → Practice → Write a blog post or create a video
Thanks so much for reading. Have a great day!
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