When Vik Paruchuri decided to move from Boston to the Bay Area, he knew the apartment hunt was going to be brutal. “[I] figured out that a lot of finding an apartment comes down to timing,” he said. A minute can make the difference between getting your dream apartment and losing it.
To stay ahead of the race, Vik enlisted the help of a real estate agent who could alert him, day in and day out, of any property that matched his preferences to a T.
True to his nature as a machine learning engineer and founder of data skills learning platform Dataquest, Vik automated the apartment hunt by building a real estate agent that never sleeps: a chatbot.
Data Science Is Practical
The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil; it’s data. But just like oil, data does not have much value in the market when left untapped. Put another way, its value increases with use.
Enter data scientists, the most prolific users of data who leverage their skills in data refinement and analysis to derive solutions for real-world problems. For Vik, his problem at the time was the stressful process of house hunting. With his knowledge of data science, he followed a four-step process that involved scraping listings off of Craigslist 24/7.
The end product was the chatbot.
“Using this bot, I found a great apartment in San Francisco for more than I hoped to pay, but less than I thought a one-bedroom [apartment] in SF would end up costing,” he shared. “It also took me a lot less time than I’d expected it to.”
More specifically, it only took him one week to find a place that checked all his personalized parameters, including neighborhood and proximity to transit.
What Makes Dataquest Worth It? Hear from Dataquest Students
The lesson of the story above is easy to glean: it pays to have data skills.
It’s this same message that Dataquest hopes to impart to its students. Following in Vik’s footsteps are thousands of Dataquest students who have come out of their training with a portfolio of data science projects that readily demonstrates the skills they honed while in Dataquest.
That said, most got more than a portfolio.
According to the 2020 Dataquest Outcomes Report, 90 percent of Dataquest students transitioned to data-related jobs after completing their training. For others, the jobs found them.
Dataquest Gets You Job-Ready
Victoria wasn’t actively applying for a job when she enrolled in Dataquest’s data science courses. If anything, she only wanted to build a stronger understanding of data analysis, a field that she found interesting while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience.
The irony of Victoria’s story is that Dataquest got her job-ready—way before she even got to apply for any job.
“I worked through the projects on Dataquest. I worked through the lesson paths, and I kept up with the new content as [Dataquest] updated the platform over the year or so that I was a subscriber,” said Victoria. “Eventually, I put that I was open to recruiters on LinkedIn.”
A message from a recruiter, an interview, a redirect to her GitHub that contained a summary of the Dataquest guided projects she completed, and a week. That was all it took for Victoria to get a job at a publishing company as a data analyst, a role she continues to hold two years strong.
“That is the power of a data science education and that is the power of a Dataquest education,” said Victoria. “This job found me.”
Dataquest Guided Project Highlight: Finding the Best Markets to Advertise In
“The [company was] very enthusiastic about [the project],” said Victoria, describing how the hiring manager took a special interest in one of Dataquest’s guided projects. “I could absolutely highlight that project as being particularly applicable to real-world applications of data analytics and data science out in the wild.”
The premise of the particular project is simple. First, picture yourself as a data scientist of an e-learning company for tech courses. Now, answer this: which two markets should you advertise to so you can get the most traction with customers?
The project requires you to work on target market analysis, a process that helps data analysts identify which groups of people the company should be speaking to. To complete the task, you’ll need to combine the skills you learned from Dataquest’s Statistics Fundamentals in R course and use them in a business context.
Dataquest Builds Relevant Data Science Skills
Four years have passed since Francisco enrolled in Dataquest to learn how he could better use Excel for data analysis. Yet the skills he built throughout his training continue to be beneficial to his career.
Then a human resource analyst, Francisco now works as a senior data scientist for an online health insurance company. “Most of the work I do is put[ting] machine learning models into production,” he said.
Francisco’s road to his current role was not so smooth. That said, he emphasized that the power of having data skills cannot be overstated.
“Because Guatemala is not the most cutting-edge country, I started by looking at companies that might have large amounts of data,” he said, referring to his job search experience post-Dataquest. “I found some interesting companies, but they didn’t have any jobs listed on their website.”
So, Francisco applied for any job he could find and let his data skills do the talking. “I would get an interview for a marketing job, and then in the interview, I would talk about what I could do with data to help the company.”
It worked.
As 2016 drew to a close, Francisco landed his first data scientist role, paving the way for his career in the field.
“Dataquest finds a balance between being too easy and being so hard that you get discouraged,” said Francisco. “I definitely still use the skills that I learned at Dataquest. I use those skills every day.”
Dataquest Offers Affordable and Realistic Data Science Training
Eight thousand euros or roughly $9,800 was what Miguel needed to secure his seat in one of Berlin’s most prestigious data science bootcamps. In the end, Miguel only spent €250 (or approximately $300) to get the same education at Dataquest.
Miguel had applied for a scholarship at the Berlin-based bootcamp, only to be rejected and told that while his profile was good, it was not excellent. “When I read that last line, I thought, ‘Okay this is when I’m going to show you I can do it on my own, without needing to spend €8,000 at your school,’” he said.
Determined to prove himself, Miguel quit his job and enrolled in one of three Dataquest Career Paths: the Data Scientist in Python. He didn’t stop there. Miguel took advantage of all data science resources at his disposal, from blogs and YouTube tutorials to freelancing opportunities that were beyond his level of expertise.
“You shouldn’t be afraid of that. Sometimes you just think: ‘Oh, it’s too much for me, I can’t do it.’ But just go for it,” he said. “That’s the way I think people learn. You need to do [it], instead of just spending your day reading. It’s very important to read as well, but you need to get hands-on.”
Only halfway through his Dataquest training, Miguel started applying for data science jobs. “To my surprise, I got a lot of positive replies,” he said, adding that he even made it to as far as the final stage of the interview process for four companies.
By the end of it, Miguel secured a job as a data analyst for Berlin-based digital media specialist Plista.
“[Dataquest] really helped me a lot,” said Miguel. “Especially the projects, which allowed me to actually start building a Github portfolio. And the community is amazing. Dataquest’s Slack [community] is incredible. I learned a lot from the guys there. There’s constantly new information coming in.”
“I also really enjoy the platform,” he added. “There’s this psychological thing that you always want to increase your score, your percentage, and your achievements…”
After nearly two years as a data analyst, Miguel stepped up to a big data analyst role in one of Europe’s leading Internet TV providers.
The moral of the story, according to Miguel, is this: “You don’t really need to spend $10,000 on a bootcamp. It cannot be your only option. Some people think that: ‘It’s my only option because I’ll get the contacts, and I’ll work with other people.’”
“You can learn that online as well, and you can still get a job.”
Dataquest Cost Highlight: Free and Paid Subscription Plans
Dataquest offers a soft start to any data learners through its Free Subscription Plan. With this plan, you can learn from Dataquest’s free courses and try your hand at solving hundreds of practice problems.
Once you’re ready for tougher challenges, take the next step with Dataquest’s Premium Subscription Plan. Pay $49 per month or save $189 by paying $399 annually. With the Premium Plan, you gain access to all of the Dataquest data science courses and guided projects, both of which have made a mark among former Dataquest students.
The Consensus: It Pays to Be a Dataquest Student
For Victoria, Francisco, and Miguel, building their data skills with Dataquest paved the way to their current careers. From practical and realistic training to affordable learning plans, Dataquest remains an accessible choice for data learners.
Don’t take our word for it. Let’s look at the numbers.
Inside Dataquest’s Alumni Outcomes
In 2020, Dataquest gathered data from 656 learners to gain a better understanding of how Dataquest training has impacted their lives. The results were promising.
According to the 2020 Dataquest reviews, 97 percent of the respondents would readily recommend the platform to anyone looking for career advancement. This is a point up from the results of the 2019 Dataquest reviews.
Of them, 90 percent have moved into jobs that require data skills and 91 percent saw a positive return on their investment. This includes a median salary gain of $30,000 per year for those who reported a salary change post-Dataquest.
Nearly all students, namely 97 percent, hit their goals in less than a year since they joined Dataquest.
Data Learning Is Practical
Data science is a practical discipline. So it only makes sense to learn it through the practical application of data science skills and theories.
Dataquest excels in this front by creating learning paths that are firmly rooted in exposing students to real datasets and encouraging them to build real-world projects from end to end. Of course, there’s the bonus of leaping to data science and analytics careers.
So, do you want to start building your data science project? Or do you want to jumpstart your data career? With Dataquest, you might just be able to do both.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
