Even after a successful 16 years in the systems networking domain, Bhanu Prasad diligently invests his time and efforts in upskilling. And so, while learning data modeling techniques, he listened to his curiosity and enrolled for the Global Certificate in Data Science (GCD) program at Accredian.
In this interview, let’s see what interests Bhanu the most about Data Science and how his experience has been at Accredian.
Question 1: Which program & batch are you part of at Accredian & tell us more about your current work profile?
Bhanu: I am part of the Global Certificate in Data Science (GCD) program, June 2019. My current job responsibilities include extensive customer and data support along with project management and people management.
Question 2: Walk us through your career journey & what got you interested in Data Science & Machine Learning?
Bhanu: I have over 16 years of experience in the systems networking domain and thoroughly love every second of working in it. As a company, we support a huge number of customers and deal with end-user data, organized, structured and unstructured. Most of the time my job responsibilities involve project and people management.
I have completed my post graduation from IIT Roorkee and have an MBA from Osmania University. I am also conducting my own research in computer science engineering and project management, topic and video. When I started learning data modelling techniques, I got really interested in it and that encouraged me to join Accredian to understand and improve in the subject further.
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?
Bhanu: I worked with Jupyter Notebooks and Google Collab for Python coding. Coming to Python libraries, I learned NumPy, Pandas, Scikit-Learn, Seaborn, and Matplotlib for data visualization. Accredian also helped me learn machine learning algorithms like regression models, linear and nonlinear regression, etc., in an SVM binary classification.
Question 4: What are some initial challenges when you got started on your Data Science journey, and how did you overcome them?
Bhanu: Data Science, to me, is as interesting as it is challenging because while I was studying it I was curious to understand how Python can help visualize raw data for data analysis and data processing. And, because I am already an ML programmer, the course was not that difficult.
However, the biggest roadblock for me at the beginning of the course was continuous workload that disrupted my focus on learning. I am fortunate enough that the Accredian faculties were always there to help me with my study. They encouraged me to understand the subject in detail. And, I think it is an excellent program that I recommend to anyone who wants to learn data science.
Question 5: Who is your favorite faculty at Accredian, and what did you learn from him the Most?
Bhanu: I’m thankful to Accredian for the best curriculum designed for this program, the projects, and the classes conducted. I sincerely thank all the faculties and the guest lecturers for the industry sessions.
The credit for our success in completing the data science course goes to the faculties. I particularly want to thank Suchit for the excellent sessions on EDA and Deepesh for the practice sessions on Machine Learning.
Question 6: What is the goal of Data Science?
Bhanu: Data science aims to guide organizations to predict trends using the existing data with increased accuracy. It can help organizations scale the customers and clients in the right and positive direction with proper predictions from the available data sources. Data sets can help organizations grow in all the possible ways by understanding customer needs.
Question 7: In your view, how has Data Science evolved in the last few years?
Bhanu: Data Science has evolved considerably over the last 50 years. It has taken center stage in the world through its significant impact across diverse industries. Today, data scientists are invaluable to any company, and employers are willing to pay for them. With the exponential growth of data volumes, the expansion of data science applications in areas like machine learning and artificial intelligence is inevitable and constant.
Question 8: What are the current trends in Data Science that you are most excited about?
Bhanu: I am very excited about the exponential growth of data partly generated by sensor-driven devices, the responsible AI-driven data privacy models, and Python as the de facto fabric of Data Science.
Question 9: Which are some of the blogs that you follow?
Bhanu: I frequently read Medium and Towards Data Science. I’m also working to enhance my understanding of Data Science so that I can write blogs and publish white papers.
Question 10: What is your advice to anyone wanting to start a career in Data Science?
Bhanu: My suggestion to anyone who wants to start a data science career is get comfortable with Python. Learn EDA, data analysis, data manipulation, data visualization, and the supported Python libraries like Pandas NumPy and Scikit-Learn. Have know-how of machine learning algorithms – supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised. And, keep learning and practicing more to enhance your career.
This was a conversation with one of our GCD students – Bhanu Prasad SGV.
To discover more such interesting student interviews, check out Accredian Spotlight.
