foreign [Music] excited to have you here on the episode of the cast and we really appreciate your time I'll just get right into the first question that we have for you today Sarah so how has your post-secondary education shaped your journey to where you are today I think my post-secondary education is where I discover my interest for statistics that's also when I realized that I really like to learn and I think that's how got me into the data science field because you know I found out that I like to look at things in the data
perspective some people who are an artist they might look at things in a more artistic way it's actually the same for data scientists data analysts so we kind of like Quantified things look at things and numbers and so I think that really helped me to find out that this works for me yeah definitely it's an interesting to hear the perspective on the differences between maybe looking at things from an artistic View and more of a quantitative view so thank you for sharing Insight on that I'm going to pass it up to Cece to ask the
next few questions your career path underwent a significant shift from business and marketing to data science and analytics can you elaborate on the driving forces behind this change and how you discovered your passion so actually my University degree was International economics I would say it's more like economics and statistics so I think back then we were doing a lot of Statistics it's just we didn't really have the technical know-how to enable us to do data science after graduation I wanted to get into data science but at that time it was really hard because I didn't
have a degree or I didn't have any work experience so I took some Gap time actually after I graduated to learn how to code and do some data science project on my own but still that was a bit hard to land me a job so what I did was I entered a startup and did some marketing analytics there I'm really grateful about my first job actually because I think it's very important that we remember what lies behind these technology the data is business that's driving it so I often say people in our industry are a
bit more nerdy so we're always into like the new technology but it's not just about applying the newest technology sometimes a simple solution might be the easier way to cope so I think it's also good to have that business perspective and after I worked in the marketing analytics had some more work experience also I was lucky enough to be working with the data scientists there on a data science project so always try to look for opportunity that kind of aligned with what I wanted to do and eventually I went to a data science consultancy firm
and I think that's where it got a lot easier after you have one of your deep inside thank you so much for your Insight next question of someone who successfully transitioned into data science what advice would you give to Young individuals contemplating a career switch into this Dynamic field I think the first thing is to know why you're into this industry because I think it's definitely a very popular industry to be in it's called job Tech job but I wouldn't say it's suitable for everyone you know if you're really an artistic person then why would
you go pursue data science because it's not your thing right I do have people around me that are trying to get into the analytics field because they feel that this is the more popular industry to be in but I think the first thing is you know always to understand why you're into it and once you've validated it you understood yourself and that you confirm that you want to be in this industry then I think there are so many ways definitely there are a lot more Master programs degree program offered to students and I think more
and more companies are recognizing that so that's one of the paths for myself I I try to learn data science online there's a a lot of resources on the internet as well but I would say project is very important things like Coursera you get to learn the series but having the actual project really helps you to start the work sooner and give value to the company thank you yeah it is really important to validate yourself when going into a job instead of chasing what everyone wants to go into because it is just a popular field
but with your extensive background in both business economics and data science what unique perspectives and skills do you believe professionals with economics backgrounds bring to the world of data science how can these talents be harnessed to excel in this rapidly evolving field to me what economics is about like how to make decisions it's always about optimization and I think that is a big similarity between economics and data science for data science it's basically a lot of data represented in many ways and you're trying to see what is the business problem here whether it's trying to
optimize to maximize the cells to minimize costs you know you have your business problem and then it's finding the best answer to it using the data information that you have so I think the thought process in this way is quite similar to economics it's just economics is a bit more theoretical you may call it where data science you have a computer you can actually actualize it on a machine I did really like Game Theory back at school you have to come up with some weird formulas try to quantify the situation I think that's quite similar
to data science as well thank you for the last question I'll just pass it back to you so thank you Sarah for sharing those amazing insights so our last question for you today so data science is constantly evolving with rapid technological advancements and data analytics what steps can younger individuals like yourself take to stay ahead and maintain a Competitive Edge in this field in regards to those rapid technological advancements I might not be the best person to give advice but when I was in the data science consultancy firm I think we always try to take
more certifications or just stay up to Trend into what the big companies are doing knowing the new technology maybe just follow them on LinkedIn if you really want to learn about it you can take some certification they have a lot of learning portals I think that's a good way because I think for data science it's kind of evolving in a way that it's more accessible to everyone it's easier to use the tools like for example you have all these like photoshopped AI apps coming up so even people who don't know what AI is what data
science is they can be using these tools so definitely it's a lot easier to do data analytics and data science I feel like if say you don't want to go too in depth just knowing how to use their tools can already help you to do a lot of data so definitely it's great that the industry has a lot of accessible tools and it's really important to encourage young people to take advantage of those while they have them so thank you so much for sharing that and that concludes our last podcast question for you today Sarah
we just want to thank you so much for your time we really appreciate your insights and we hope that all of our listeners can take heed of all those valuable words that you shared today thank you so much for inviting me foreign
