In this blog post, I’ll show you how to rename columns in R. This is pretty straightforward if you know how to do it properly, but there are also some little challenges in renaming variables. So very briefly, I’ll explain why renaming variables in a dataframe can be a little confusing in R. Then, I’ll … Read more
If you want to be a data scientist, you need to master core data manipulation tools. One particular skill you’ll need to master is string manipulation. You need to be able to work with strings (i.e. character data) in order to clean, modify, or reshape them. In this blog post, you’ll learn one specific string … Read more
You’ve probably heard it before: 80% of your work as a data scientist will be data wrangling. While that’s sort of a rough number, experience bears out that data wrangling is a massive part of your job as a data scientist. As such, it pays to know data manipulation. In fact, it pays to be … Read more
A few days ago, I received an email from a Sharp Sight reader. The author of the email is having trouble learning data science in R. He’s taken several data science courses, but still has trouble with critical data science skills. Here’s an excerpt from his email: I’ve redacted the company names, but I’ll tell … Read more
Recently, a Sharp Sight blog reader emailed me and asked for advice about data science prerequisites. He was nervous about math. Someone had told him that in order to study data science, he needed to learn a long list of math topics first: Precalculus Calculus Multi variable calculus Trigonometry Linear algebra Differential equations Statistics Although … Read more
Data manipulation is a critical, core skill in data science. If you want to get a job as a data scientist, you need to master basic data manipulation operations. Ideally, you should be able to write them rapidly, and from memory (no looking them up on Google!). A very common data manipulation task is manipulating … Read more
One of the most important skills you’ll need as a data scientist (and a junior data scientist in particular) is telling stories with data. Companies, hiring managers, and recruiters not only need you to be able to find insights in data; they also need you to be able to communicate with data. In practice, communicating … Read more
As you’re learning data science, you ultimately need to learn several different toolkits. You need to learn the tools of data visualization. You need to learn the tools of data manipulation. You also need a variety of other tools for specialized tasks, like geospatial visualization, machine learning, and others. Here at Sharp Sight, we have … Read more
For many data scientists and data analytics professionals, as much as 80% of their work is data wrangling and exploratory data analysis. Of course, everyone wants to focus on machine learning and advanced techniques, but the reality is that a lot of the work of many data scientists is a little more mundane. That isn’t … Read more
Data storytelling is a critical data science skill, so after you’ve mastered data visualization, you need to learn to tell stories with data.