In this Accredian Spotlight interview, we feature Prashant Gabhane, a leading Accounting Professional at Steel Authority of India. His insatiable quest for knowledge and upskilling led him to enroll in the Global Certificate in Data Science & Artificial Intelligence program at Accredian.
Question 1: Which program & batch are you a part of at Accredian & tell us more about your current work profile?
Prashant: At Accredian, I am a part of the Global Certificate in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, January 2021 cohort. I am currently working with the Steel Authority of India Limited. I handle some of the largest customers of the company as a Key Account Manager.
Question 2: Walk us through your career journey & what got you interested in Data Science & Machine Learning?
Prashant: I’ve been working in sales for more than 15 years now, and have been handling a lot of data. However, traditional tools would provide little insight into the vast amount of data being generated.
I felt that we could do even better if we are equipped with better tools, which inspired me to learn Data Science and Machine Learning.
Question 3: What tools and packages in Data Science & Machine Learning have you mastered at Accredian so far?
Prashant: Python is a great language that not only has simple coding language but is also very easy to learn and grasp. I’m fascinated by its various libraries and packages, especially NumPy and Pandas for Data handling and manipulation. For Visualization, I’ve mastered Seaborn and Matplotlib.
Question 4: What challenges did you face in the journey of Data Science and how did you overcome them?
Prashant: Since I’m passionate about coding, I did not find challenges initially, and really enjoyed learning Python. But after some time, as Machine Learning concepts and Algorithms were taught, it became overwhelming, and any delay would make it difficult to catch up. However, I overcame it by perseverant practice and hard work.
Question 5: Who is your favorite faculty at Accredian and what did you learn from them?
Prashant: It is actually one of the most difficult questions to answer. As each faculty at Accredian comes with a lot of real-world experience, and hone really good teaching skills.
On one hand, Suchit and Abhinav made complex concepts of Python easy and on the other Subhodeep and Amit, Goel simplified various ML concepts and Tableau respectively. Hemanka has also been superb in walking us through real-world problems with great analytical Insights.
Question 6: What is the goal of Data Science?
Prashant: I believe the goal of Data Science is to help us in diving deeper to look beyond the obvious and superficial world to derive better and meaningful solutions to everyday problems by offering the best business solutions to problems.
Question 7: How has Data Science evolved in the last few years?
Prashant: In the last few years, we have been generating humongous data, which required more sophisticated algorithms to tackle and find the Insights. Data Science has been using both the conventional as well as modern knowledge and wisdom of Statistics to tackle efficiently.
Question 8: What current trends in Data Science are you most excited about?
Prashant: The current application of Data Science especially in the field of Medical science and Engineering is extremely exciting.
Question 9: Which Data Science blogs do you follow?
Prashant: I follow blogs like Medium, Towards Data Science, and Analytics Vidhya.
Question 10: What advice would you give to a beginner in Data Science?
Prashant: I believe that one must have a deep passion for Data analysis and producing the best results for Industry problems. Also, one must have a thorough understanding of the concepts and hands-on experience of handling and presenting Data.
Hope you enjoyed reading this interview. If you want to read more such interesting student stories, check out Accredian Spotlight.
