FAQ #1: Should you pursue a Master’s in Data Science?

I get this asked a lot!

You’re looking to break into data science in the coming year 2023, but you don’t know where to start, or which roadmap to follow. I found myself in the same dilemma in early 2022. Even though the internet is flooded with tons of advice, there’s no way of knowing what will work for you. Should you take online non-degree courses (bootcamps and open courseware) or should you just earn a Master’s degree to level up? Either way, there’s time and money to invest, so you have to be sure you make the right decision.

Let’s take a data-driven approach (and you would if you are a data enthusiast) to crack this nut open, once and for all. Let the numbers tell their story.

So I’ve been analysing Kaggle’s State of Data Science and Machine Learning 2022 Survey, and this was the first question I decided to answer. Wrangled 6,911 responses and although they might not be representative of the whole data science population, they still make a viable chunk to start with.

So the results are in!

Master’s in Data Science

3072 respondednts had a Master’s degree. Approximately 40% of them landed a Data Scientist or ML Ops role. 22% became data/business analysts and 14% were Managers of their data teams. 12% are software engineers with a Master’s.

Bachelor’s in Data Science

1598 of survey respondents had a Bachelor’s as their most recent degree. 30% are data scientists (not bad), and 29% work as analysts in their departments. 9% of them are data engineers and data team managers. 21% of them are software engineers and a small percentage (3%) is research scientist/statistician.

The non-degree course road

Out of 6,911 respondents, 225 individuals landed a data role from online courses and bootcamps. That is not an encouraging number. Though if you still want to go down this road, make sure you build, build and build a lot of projects that actually solve a problem to stand out from other applicants.

Key insights:

• I’d say a Data Science Master’s degree is your safest bet if you want to break into data science in 2023

• There are comparatively less master’s degree holders in software engineering and data engineering

• Research scientists and/or statisticians are the ones with most PhDs.

I'll be back with more insights next week to answer FAQs that most people have when starting their data journey. 

Do you have one? Feel free to ask while I'm wrangling this dataset!