Want to become a Data Scientist ?
By: Jaskaran Kaur Cheema
Tags: Life Lessons, Interview, Data Science, Education, Technology

So, read the interesting journeys of three successful data scientists to gain inspiration and lessons to excel in data science industry. ✌️

By : Fatemeh Renani ,Mohammad Mazraeh, Jaskaran Kaur Cheema

Infographic : Jaskaran Kaur Cheema

“Torture the data, it will confess to anything”-Ronald Coase

Due to the enormous generation of data, modern business marketplace is becoming a data driven environment. Decisions are made on the basis of facts, trends and analysis drawn from the data. Moreover, automation and Machine Learning are becoming core components of IT strategies. Therefore, the role of Data Scientists and Data Engineers is becoming increasing important.

In this blog, we have enumerated the journeys of three Data Scientists who have different educational backgrounds and career paths but have successfully curved a niche for themselves in the Data Science Industry.

We hope that their journeys will inspire you to excel in data science industry.

MANROOP KAUR, Data Engineer ICBC

Manroop Kaur, is a Data Engineer at ICBC Vancouver. She is a graduate of SFU’s Professional Master of Science in Computer Science program Specializing in Big Data.

Can you tell us about ICBC and your current role.

ICBC was built in order to provide basic insurance and managing claims which is the core component of the company. At present, the company is working on RAAP (Rate Affordability Action Plan (RAAP) project that will fundamentally change its business model to create a sustainable auto insurance system which would provide more affordable and fair rates for all. As a part of this project, I am working as a Data Engineer in Claims and Driver Licensing Teams in Information Management Department.

What convinced you to venture in to the Big Data field.

While working with Tech Mahindra, I heard about a project where data was being transferred from traditional database to Hadoop. This was the first time in my life I came across big data terminology and started exploring it by reading online articles. Since I already wanted to expand my education qualification, so I thought of venturing into this field. SFU’s Professional Master’s program was perfect fit so I applied and got accepted into it.

Can you describe your career journey after enrolling in Big Data program

While at SFU, I did my coop with WorkSafeBC. My work focused on Text analysis, doing advanced analytics and applying Machine learning algorithms. After that I applied at ICBC and it’s been a year of working as a Data Engineer with ICBC.

Any courses that you recommend to pursue to be successful in this program.

I believe that Big data program at SFU is structured so well that if you complete the assignments of Programming Lab 1 and 2 diligently, there is no requirement of any other course.

Can you describe any of your most interesting project.

I remember doing a project during internship of detecting the likelihood of claim to be fraudulent. We analyzed the claim data of past 5 years. Regular meetings with real field investigators were held to know about the red flags. Later, data was analyzed using those red flags. This project taught me that in academic setting we focus on obtaining high accuracy but sometimes in real life problems accuracy has different definition. So, the model that data science team was preparing would be termed successful if it was able to detect even 40 out of 500 claims to be fraud which are actually in real life.

Any interesting lesson that you learned after working in this field .

So, when I started learning about data science, I used to get very excited about applying ML algorithms to see the output of my model without spending much time on analyzing or cleaning the data . Later, I realized that data plays vital role and preparing it takes 90% of time but as performance of model depends upon the data being fed to it, preparation time is worth the effort.

How do you reflect on your decision of enrolling in this program.

I think decision of acquiring Master’s Degree in Big Data at SFU has proved to be worth my time and resources I invested in it. As it not only provided me the education in concurrent with the industry requirements but also has helped me securing a good job.

Any advice for people who wants to venture in this field.

I think focusing on one domain rather than doing everything in data science and updating your skills regularly will lead to a successful career.