Narendra Singh Parihar has worked with multiple clients from the finance sector that introduced him to data analysis, and later data science. Curious, when he looked it up online, he instantly got interested in ML and AI, and wanted to learn. So, without any further delay, he enrolled for the Global Certificate in Data Science & AI (GCDAI) program at Accredian.
In this conversation, let’s see what interests Narendra about 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?
Narendra: I am part of the Global Certificate in Data Science & AI (GCDAI) program, January 2020 batch. I am currently working as a Head Automation Engineer at Ascent Cyber Solutions. The role is intense and requires me to collaborate with clients, manage my team, and report to the manager.
Question 2: Walk us through your career journey & what got you interested in Data Science & Machine Learning?
Narendra: I am a mechanical engineer. After graduation, I started my career with Ascent Cyber Solutions. As a junior quality assurance engineer, I learned programming languages like Java and Selenium and then got promoted to an automation engineer. After a year, I became the head of the testing department and worked with several bank clients and some corporate clients. While working with these clients I came across data analysis and insights which led me to data science, ML and AI. I researched some more on the subject and instantly got hooked to it.
Question 3: What all tools and packages in Data Science & Machine Learning have you mastered in your Data Science & AI program at Accredian so far?
Narendra: I have mastered Python and it’s libraries like Pandas and NumPy, visualization libraries like Matplotlib and GG plots, visualization tools like basic statistics and exploratory data analysis and machine learning algorithms like linear regression, logistic regression, decision tree, random forest, and SVM.
Question 4: What were some of the initial challenges when you got started on your Data Science journey and how did you overcome it?
Narendra: Initially, I faced challenges in Python and statistics. So I made it a habit to practice Python daily, took some extra effort to solve online codes on Python, watched YouTube videos and read blogs on Medium and Google to learn more about statistics.
Question 5: Who is your favorite faculty at Accredian and what did you learn from him the Most?
Narendra: Lavie Nigam and Deepesh Wadhwani are my favorite faculties at Accredian. Both of them helped me cultivate my daily habit of reading blogs. They also helped me to take part in Kaggle’s coding competitions online so that I understand Python and machine learning codes better.
Question 6: What is the goal of Data Science?
Narendra: Data science aims to generate insights and unravel hidden patterns from raw data so that stakeholders can make better decisions.
Question 7: In your view, how has Data Science evolved in the last few years?
Narendra: A few years back nobody knew about data science, ML and AI. But now these are household names. Almost every industry is talking about it and every organization is creating their own data science departments. And, tech giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, etc. are taking huge efforts in data science, ML and AI by creating diverse products that function on data science and ML models.
Question 8: What are the current trends in Data Science that you are most excited about?
Narendra: One of the current trends in data science, ML and AI that I am really excited about is increased use of Auto ML. Currently, many companies are heavily investing in building and buying automated tools and services. I am also interested to know more about responsible AI, natural language processing (NLP), the rise of IoT devices, and cloud-based Big Data tools of Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft.
Question 9: Which are some of the blogs that you follow?
Narendra: I follow Medium, KDnuggets, AnalyticsVidhya and Quora blogs.
Question 10: What is your advice to anyone wanting to start a career in Data Science?
Narendra: Learning data science, ML and AI is not an easy process. You have to motivate yourself to steadily move on with your journey in data science. Sometimes when you will not be able to grasp a theory or concept, it will be really frustrating. But, believe me, if you give time and effort regularly, then you can overcome the challenges. And if you practice and read daily, then you can successfully complete your data science journey.
This was a conversation with one of our GCDAI students – Narendra Singh Parihar.
Discover more such interesting student interviews at Accredian Spotlight.
