How to Get Started in Data Science for High School Students
11 years ago, Thomas H. Davenport and DJ Patil from Harvard Business Review published an article claiming data science to be the sexiest job of the 21st century. Today, I still completely agree with them. Data Scientists have countless unique opportunities across many industries such as healthcare, finance, marketing, and technology. Data scientists also have the opportunity to make a big impact in the world by analyzing and finding insights from collected data, which can lead to groundbreaking research findings.
Due to these reasons, many high school students are interested in either majoring or having a career in data science or related fields. However, compared to other fields, Data Science can be a much more tricky field for high school students to get started in.
There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, for one to be successful in data science, one needs to have knowledge of many different fields, especially computer science, math and statistics, and domain expertise. Secondly, it is not a subject typically taught in high school classrooms, meaning it often requires high school students to self-learn it. Despite this, however, data science is not rocket science and it is definitely something that one can learn on their own.
This blog post explores all this by discussing more in-depth what data science is, and by giving a comprehensive guide on what high school students should do to get started with and pursue a career in data science.
What is Data Science?
Data Science is a field that aims to use statistical methods, scientific computing, computational models, algorithms, etc. in order to extract insights from data. It includes various processes including data collection, data preprocessing, data modeling/statistical analysis, etc. with the ultimate goal of making data-driven decisions and predictions. Data Science is a highly computational field as many data scientists use programming languages such as Python or R to preprocess and apply models to data. By leveraging data science, companies and business can uncover hidden patterns, trends, and correlations in their data which will allow them to enhance their decision-making processes and optimize operations, in order to get a competitive edge over other competitors.
How should High School Students Start Learning Data Science?
Firstly, before one begins to learn data science, it is important that they have some prior knowledge of programming and Python syntax. One doesn’t need to have an extensive and in-depth understanding, but it is helpful to have a general understanding. If you don’t have any prior programming knowledge, it would be recommended to take the AP Computer Science A either online or in school. Even though this course is taught in Java, it is fairly easy to get a hang of and learn Python once you learn Java, since Python has generally basic syntax. However, if you do have prior programming knowledge I would recommend you take both the courses/programs listed below.
#1 COURSERA
Coursera is a US-based online course provider that offers many different types of courses. The courses offered are typically provided by specific universities as well. Coursera offers many data science courses, but one in the particular course I would recommend for high school students trying to get started in data science is Applied Data with Python Specialization, offered by the University of Michigan. Within this course, there are 5 smaller subcourses which each focus on specific data analyzing methods. It is great for taking someone from an introductory level in data science all the way up to an expert level of knowledge.
#2 INSPIRIT AI HIGH SCHOOL SCHOLARS
Inspirit AI High School Scholars is a great 2-week summer program to learn about and get an introduction to machine learning and artificial intelligence modeling, which is a big part of data science. This program is great for giving one a foundation in machine learning and AI that someone can use to effectively model data and make predictions.
Potential Data Science Jobs
One of the beauties of data science is that it opens up numerous amounts of jobs and career field opportunities to work on. One has the opportunity to potentially work in any industry they want to. Down below is a list of potential data science-related jobs one can have.
#1 HEALTHCARE
The healthcare sector collects huge amounts of data. For example, there is data collected from clinical trials, medical records, disease registries, etc. There are numerous potential opportunities for data scientists in the healthcare industry. For example, a data scientist can conduct trials to analyze the effectiveness of a new drug or medicine. A data scientist can collect a patient's data and analyze it to diagnose a certain patient with a certain disease or condition. A data scientist can also improve upon or come up with new models for analyzing patient data and diagnosing them with a disease or condition. Overall, there are numerous opportunities for data scientists in the healthcare industry.
#2 AGRICULTURE
Agriculture may not appear as an obvious industry for data scientists to work in, however, it does present data scientists with numerous job opportunities. For example, data scientists could be used to determine the effectiveness of a new chemical substance, fertilizer, or agriculture practice. A data scientist could be hired by a company to analyze the soil, yield, and weather data and provide recommendations to companies on what they should do to improve production. A data scientist could also build machine-learning models to predict the effects of certain agriculture practices or chemical substances on soil quality or crop yield.
#3 TECHNOLOGY
Unlike agriculture, technology appears as a much more obvious industry for data scientists to work in. Firstly, data scientists can be used to analyze customer data and understand their behavior. Data Scientists can then help tech companies personalize certain services accordingly to the specific customer. A clear example of this is social media apps such as TikTok and Instagram where the apps can personalize the content that users see. Netflix is another example. Data Scientists can also be used to generalize customer behavior on an app and provide recommendations on what businesses should change about their product to improve overall customer experience.
#4 SPORTS
Sports is a massive industry that many people are highly interested in and passionate about. While not everyone may be able to become an athlete, they can still work in the sports industry by being a data scientist. Data scientists can play a key role in analyzing player data and providing recommendations to sports teams on which players they should require. Data scientists can also collect and analyze team data, and generate insights explaining what areas a team needs to improve.
Conclusion
Ultimately, data science is a beautiful field for high school students, interested in programming, to get involved in. It offers countless opportunities to get involved in virtually any industry they want to. It may be tough initially to learn, but anyone can become an expert in them if they invest the time and effort into learning it. Therefore, if you are interested in programming, definitely give data science a chance.
About Inspirit AI
AI Scholars Live Online is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
