Sagar Venkatesh is a mechanical engineer with knowledge in Python scripting. Having over 10 years of experience in the automotive industry, he witnessed the rapid adoption of Data Science in it. He, therefore, decided to go for a data science course online and enrolled for the Global Certificate in Data Science (GCD) course at Accredian.
In this interview, let’s take a look at what interests him the most in 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?
Sagar: I am part of the Global Certificate in Data Science (GCD) program, July 2020 batch. I am a mechanical engineer with a Masters in product design. I am a structure analyst in the automotive safety domain and a team lead handling three engineers. I have a total of 10+ years of experience. My responsibilities include overseeing end-to-end product designs. It is more into technical rather than management. I coach and mentor my team members to achieve overall organizational and departmental goals.
Question 2: Walk us through your career journey & what got you interested in Data Science & Machine Learning?
Sagar: I started my career at Wipro Technologies and then got absorbed in engineering design services at V. Brogan. Apart from being a mechanical engineer, I am also trained in scripting Python code. And, that’s what enabled me to work in automation for software testing as well for an Apple account. In fact, I have taken up several Python scripting jobs in the past. And then, I moved to Timken and later to Autoliv India.
It’s been more than 8 years now that I have been working in automotive safety systems where the main objective is to save lives using airbags, seatbelts detectors, passive and active safety. In my domain, I regularly work with data and use programming languages of Python, TCL/TK, etc.
Machine learning is prominent in the automotive industry. And I got interested in Data Science when I realized that in our process we are heavily dependent on data, data analysis, predictions, pre and post processing, etc. So I decided to learn more about Data Science and Machine Learning and joined the Accredian’s data science course online.
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?
Sagar: I have learned the basics of Machine Learning, EDA, Python and its several packages like NumPy, Pandas, Seaborn, Matplotlib. I haven’t mastered them all and it’s still in process.
Question 4: What were some of the initial challenges when you got started on your Data Science journey and how did you overcome it?
Sagar: In the beginning of the data science course online at Accredian, time management was a big challenge for me. But, as the course progressed, I got better at it.
Question 5: Who is your favorite faculty at Accredian and what did you learn from him the Most?
Sagar: Deepesh and Suchit are my favorite. We started with CDF, where Mr. Deepesh was our faculty. And we also had recordings as a Starter-kit from Mr. Suchit. I learned the basics of Python, writing functions, and NumPy, Pandas through them and it was really helpful.
Question 6: What is the goal of Data Science?
Sagar: Data science, the new oil in this generation. We have multiple sources where we have data stored, which we did not have or lacked before. And the goal of data science is to optimize the extraction of insights and predictions from this stored raw data.
Question 7: What is your advice to anyone wanting to start a career in Data Science?
Sagar: To those wanting to start their career in Data Science, I would say that although you may find several learning materials on platforms like GitHub, Kaggle, YouTube, etc., its best to get proper guidance through a formal data science course online like in Accredian.
Here, you not only get help from subject matter experts and have focused learning but can network with other professionals who have opted for the course. Through the courses at Accredian you will have better knowledge and domain exposure in data science.
This was a conversation with one of our GCD students – Sagar Venkatesh.
For more such interesting student interviews, go to Accredian Spotlight.
