What's the Best Way to Learn Data Science? MLBootcamp!
There's no doubt: data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence is growing in popularity. In 2020, the average US data scientist made more than $113,000 a year -- and in San Francisco, the average salary is well over that. Learning data science is a sure-fire way to ensure that you're gaining useful, long-term skills that are likely to pay dividends in your future academic and professional pursuits. And given the popularity, now is a great time for high school students to beef up their own data science skill set.
How do you learn data science?
So how do you actually acquire data science skills and knowledge? If you ask an average data scientist, they might lead you to a number of difficult textbooks, online courses, and coding platforms. Unfortunately, none of these tools actually are catered to typical knowledge for high school students, despite the increasing relevance for college-bound students. I can’t describe how demotivating it is to be given a huge list of resources without any context or guide as to what to learn and how to make progress. It'd be like your teacher handing you a stack of books and material for the year, and saying "read these, and come back when you're done."
Image by Hitesh Choudhary on Unsplash.
An online program for high school students
One great approach can be finding a mentor or specific program that leads you through this material. While some online course offerings are available (typically for college students), one program that is specifically designed for high school students is A4 Machine Learning's online bootcamps. These programs are run by Stanford-educated instructors, typically with graduate-level education in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data science. The instructors have designed a curriculum that meets high school students where they're at --- minimal programming and mathematical prerequisites are required, just the desire to learn data science and machine learning skills.
In fact, A4 Machine Learning is running a program in September, with registration closing soon! This program is called "Introduction to Data Science," with the following course description:
"Machine learning and AI is deeply rooted in data science and statistics. In this course, students will dive into using Python libraries to load, manipulate, and analyze datasets. Students will get hands-on experience working with Pandas, Numpy, and scikit-learn, spotting patterns in data, creating regressions, and visualizing the results using Matplotlib and Seaborn."
This class has no prerequisites beyond basic interest in machine learning and data science. Register now! (Mention Crismon Coaching in the notes and receive a 10% discount off of course registration fees!)