Data science is a profession that requires three basic skills encompassing Statistics, Programming and Communication. Some of these skills such as Programming and Communication can only be developed through practice, while Statistics requires the ability to conduct well-structured scientific research, analytical and critical thinking, in addition to practice. The pre-bootcamp care package will help you develop some of these foundational skills like programming, data analysis, analytical thinking and statistics.
The main programming languages used in data science are Python and R. While Python is fairly new compared to R, and not only used in data science, but also in web development.
R: - created to handle statistical computing and popular for academic research and professionals in statistics-based industries - great for data manipulation - great for publication-quality graphs very easily - powerful statistical modeling - not great for beginner programmers - ease of interaction with Github
Python: - very easy and intuitive to learn for beginners - large and diverse community in more disciplines - increased communication between open-source languages (including Github) - forces users to learn to write better code - faster at processing large datasets - easier to load files and can handle Big Data
For our Data Science bootcamp, we will use Python and require you to have some Git skills (a life-long skill in the data science and software development industry). A basic understanding of applying statistical principles to data analysis and inference to generate basic insights will be enough to help you through the bootcamp.
Wish you all the best!