In this Accredian Spotlight interview, we feature Shruthi Kshirasagar, who is an Assistant Professor in BGS School of Architecture and Planning. Her passion for learning led her to join the PGP in Data Science & AI, at Accredian.
Question 1: Which program & batch are you part of at Accredian & tell us more about your current work profile?
I am a Part of PGP Data Science & AI at Accredian from May 2021 batch.
I am currently into the teaching industry. I have been working as an Assistant Professor in BGS School of Architecture and Planning.
Although I am an architect and planner by profession, I have been really fascinated with programming tools and techniques. I am intrigued by how much Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are becoming a part of all industries and domains.
Most of the models that we work on as an urban planner need a lot of work on handling data. It involves a lot of regression and analysis, which could be easily analysed using EDA and machine learning techniques.
Question 2: Walk us through your career journey & what got you interested in Data Science & Machine Learning?
I am an Architect and planner by profession. As an urban planner we deal with a lot of data which needs to be cleaned, processed as well as inferred. A lot of decisions are vested on these inferences such as developing planning strategies, and policies of a city/area.
Data science and machine learning are powerful tools in informing large amounts of data together and analysing meaningful information which in turn helps in the decision making process.
Machine learning and AI are undoubtedly the most in-demand domains right now. It is because of the ease of operation and managing the data.
This got me fascinated to learn more about data science and upskill myself. I am open to other career opportunities that the PGP program of Accredian would open up for me. I am excited about the knowledge addition that is happening through this course.
Question 3: What all tools and packages have you mastered in your Data Science & AI program at Accredian so far?
I have been really fascinated about programming and all the programming languages, and I have tried to get acquainted with them as much as possible from various sources.
This course started off with statistics, pandas, EDA, machine learning and python as a programming language. As a part of the course, I have done a project on EDA, and currently I am working on the next project on machine learning basics.
The program at Accredian is very well structured to give us a proper insight before we begin any project. The work materials and recorded lecture series aid in deep learning and understanding of the subject.
Question 4: What are some of the initial challenges you faced, when you started your Data Science journey and how did you overcome it?
When I started my course at Accredian, my biggest challenge was time management, as I am a full time working professional and my job needs my time even after working hours.
Constant practice and revisiting the old topics again after a certain period was the second most important challenge I faced on my data science journey.
I have tried to overcome these challenges as much as possible by following a proper time table, utilizing a small amount of slack time, avoiding procrastination, working on study groups, interacting with people of like interests etc.
Question 5: What is the goal of Data Science?
Data science is all about working with data and gathering useful insights that benefit the decision-making process.
This could be for the development of a business, marketing, taking informed decisions about a city or a place, making an important investment plan, tracking behavioural patterns and much more.
The main aim of data science at a personal level should be to bring an ease to our life and make our choices simpler.
However, at an organizational level, the goal of data science would be to understand its customer, develop marketing strategies and lead to business growth.
Question 6: In your view, how has Data Science evolved in the last few years?
Data science is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing and ever evolving domains. With the increase in diversity in data problems and the requirement of innovative solutions, Data Science has come in handy to give a solution to such problems.
Although the trend of data science is going up there are a lot of challenges associated with it as well. Data privacy and safety in data collection and safeguarding is one amongst such challenges.
Question 7: What is your advice to anyone wanting to start a career in Data Science?
I would definitely encourage everyone who is interested in learning about data science to choose Data Science as a career path.
Learning to work with data and coming up with useful insights about it after analysing is a really interesting process, and I strongly believe that anyone with a strong connection to this should definitely think about a career in data science.
Career paths in data science encompass a wide variety of positions, from data analyst, data scientist, data engineer to machine learning scientist etc., and there are ample opportunities for anyone transitioning into the domain.
We hope you enjoyed reading this interview. If you want to read more such interesting student stories, check out Accredian Spotlight.
