Yuvraj Pandya has been in the finance sector for more than 12 years and is the AVP in one of the top global wealth management companies. But that hasn’t weakened his tryst with curiosity. And, this passion for learning something new and innovative led him to learning data science and machine learning concepts at Accredian via its Global Certificate in Data Science (GCD) program.
In this interview, let’s see what interests him in data science the most and how his learning experience has been at Accredian.
Question 1: Which program & batch are you part of at Accredian & tell us more about your current work profile?
Yuvraj: I enrolled for the Global Certificate in Data Science (GCD) program, January 2020 batch. I have over 12 years of experience and have been working with the global financial institutions throughout my career in the finance domain. My work profile typically includes application development. I also oversee the end-to-end execution of an application and communicate with business stakeholders.
Question 2: What all tools and packages in Data Science & Machine Learning have you mastered in your Data Science & AI program at Accredian so far?
Yuvraj: During the course I learned about multiple tools and packages like Python along with its various libraries of Pandas (for exporting data) and Numpy (for numerical analysis). I also learnt Matplotlib, Seaborne and various other models for visualization.
I learnt predictive modeling using Scikit library and deployment packages like Joblib and Streamlit which is an excellent platform to quickly create models or prototypes of it to show your stakeholders. With the help of Accredian faculties, I also got to know about and use Colab Notebook for Python programming.
Question 3: What were some of the initial challenges when you got started on your Data Science journey and how did you overcome it?
Yuvraj: Initially, the data science course seemed like an enormous ordeal in front of me because, to be honest, the journey was so long and there were a lot of things to be covered. There were a lot of logical concepts, programming, machine learning concepts and others that I had to delve in. So, the outline of the curriculum seemed overwhelming to me.
But gradually and confidently, I marched along. And, of course, the faculty was always there to support and clarify my doubts. So my initial mindset and to have faith in the entire process were the main challenges for me. But, as far as programming is concerned, I didn’t face any such challenge there.
Question 4: Who is your favorite faculty at Accredian and what did you learn from him the Most?
Yuvraj: Till now, we have three faculties and all of them are experts in their own field. For data exploration, what we call EDA, we had Suchit and he was just amazing at it. He can explain the most complex of concepts very simply to anyone, irrespective of their background or level of experience. So, the major lesson learnt from him is that one has to be a master at a certain subject to explain it fluently that even a five year old gets it.
Our classes on machine learning concepts were taken by Deepesh and he was amazing in the theory part. He knows machine learning models by heart. I love his teaching methods. It’s very interactive. He showcases particular machine learning models in a creative way using a simple paper and some sketch pens to depict various concepts.
And Lavie has also been an amazing faculty. He explained very complex machine learning concepts very easily and calmly. His doubt clearing sessions were awesome; he clarified all our questions till the end. He took care of the last practical portions of the machine learning sessions and made sure that all of us understood the practical applications of the machine learning concepts.
That’s why revising them was necessary on our part. And even when it was not revised by anyone, Lavi was always there to help us and provided us a lot of knowledge beyond the curriculum. So that was really remarkable. And I thank all of them for their commendable teaching. Without the three mentors, this course would not have been possible.
Question 5: What are the current trends in Data Science that you are most excited about?
Yuvraj: The application of data science is expanding across industries and their applications are really interesting in the field of agriculture, autonomous cars and others. And, the current trend that grabs my attention is deepfake videos. In these synthetic media, the person already in a video footage or image is replaced by his/her look alike. It is done so meticulously, that no one can locate the changes. I saw one such deepfake video on Apollo 13; it was really interesting and I loved it.
This was a conversation with one of our GCD students – Yuvraj Pandya.
If you want to read more such interesting student interviews, check out Accredian Spotlight.
