The Dataquest Download

Today we want to share two inspiring stories of career transformation: Elizaveta Gorelova, who went from a restaurant hostess to a Performance Data Analyst Intern at FENDI, and Kevin Johnson, who transitioned from a high school science teacher to a Data Analyst at the SDG Group.

From Hostess to Data Scientist: Elizaveta Gorelova

After discovering Dataquest through Reddit and taking a few college courses, Elizaveta realized she was learning more from Dataquest than from her Bachelor’s program. Fueled by a passion for data visualization, she chose the Data Science path to gain a strong foundation in data science concepts and tools. Her hands-on learning experience with real datasets helped her develop valuable skills that she now uses in her role as a Performance Data Analyst Intern at FENDI.

Here’s Elizaveta’s advice for Dataquest learners: “Work with real datasets, and apply the concepts you’re learning in practical ways. The skills and knowledge gained from Dataquest are extremely valuable in the job market.”

Science Teacher to Data Analyst: Kevin Johnson

Kevin Johnson, a high school teacher, felt the urge to master data science as well. He embarked on a learning journey with Dataquest, working on the Data Scientist and Data Engineering paths. He learned SQL, Python, Pandas, Machine Learning, and more, developing a portfolio of independent projects as he went. To further his learning, he volunteered as a Data Analyst, which ultimately got him noticed by employers.

Here’s Kevin’s advice to Dataquest learners: “Just get started. You don’t need too much background knowledge. Work on independent projects on the side and implement newly acquired skills in your projects.”

You’ve got this!

Both Elizaveta and Kevin credit Dataquest for providing the skills and knowledge they needed to make successful career changes. They continue to use the skills they learned at Dataquest in their daily work; keep learning, your goals are within reach.

This week, we have three impressive Community Champions — all of whom have completed one of our guided projects  . . .

@crow.charlesr shared two amazing machine learning projects: Credit Card Customer Segmentation Success and Predicting Heart Disease. Both stand out for their thoughtful data cleaning and preprocessing, as well as insightful figures and meaningful observations.

@FilipeFava applied his new knowledge to create an advanced version of the Hacker News project with a cool, eye-catching title. In this project, Filipe clearly stated the project’s goals, mentioned a possible limitation, and conducted a more thorough statistical analysis, supported by a strong narrative and compelling plots.

@actna2000 created a professional-looking project on Finding Heavy Traffic Indicators on I-94, which is noteworthy for its interesting storytelling, in-depth data analysis, elegant code, and stunning visualizations.

This week, we have more exciting release news for our Zero to GPT skill path! We’ve updated the latest course in the series, “Optimizing Network Parameters,” with a new lesson, “Optimizers.” So far, we’ve used SGD to update model parameters. In this lesson, we’ll learn about other optimizers that have better convergence properties.

We also kicked off content development for a new Django skill path. This path will be a core part of the Backend Developer career path coming later this year.

Last but not least, we began designing a new interface for Chandra, our exciting new AI tutor. More news is coming soon, so stay tuned!