Upskilling is essential in today’s ever-changing work environment. New advancements are taking place constantly. Read further to learn about Stefan’s journey with Great Learning’s PGP Data Science and Business Analytics Course in his own words.
I completed my B.Tech in Mechanical engineering, the scope in that line was diminishing with the robotics and automation in industries. Shortly after completing my course, I got a placement in the Information Technology Enabled Services (ITeS) industry. Since then I have been fascinated by the work culture and how technology helps us to carry out work easily.
I was working in the banking sector (back office), and after having 1 year and 6 months of experience, I enrolled in the PGP-DBSA course. I thought of making the lockdown time productive by investing in myself and this program kept me fully occupied after work hours.
When I started my career, I had a lot of learning at my workplace from my team members. Data is available for use in different forms, but obtaining meaningful insights was difficult. This challenge made me feel handicapped at certain points, overcoming this challenge would help me to analyze and improve the way we work.
I have heard about Great Lakes from senior managers in different organizations, especially because their data science program has been very effective and industry-specific. The main advantage of PGP-DSBA was that I could undergo this course along with work without taking a break. The lockdown in India was a completely new experience for everyone. I saw the online medium as the best way to make use of the lockdown and the work-from-home facility. The Olympus platform was way beyond my imagination and it helped me to systematically chart out how to complete each week’s recorded sessions, online quizzes and be prepared for the mentoring session.
The mentoring sessions are really effective and essential for successful course completion. In this, we discussed and outlined the basics of the topic, then we looked into an industrial application and finally doubt clarifications. This session is not a repetition of the recorded sessions. There will be new concepts and learnings from each session. Our team enjoyed the mentoring sessions and usually, it gets extended beyond 2 hrs. We even had extra sessions on public holidays for certain topics which we were interested to know more about. As the mentors were industry experts, the quality of the online sessions was extremely good. Throughout the course, my mentor has helped me to understand the basics as I don’t come from a software or computer background. From the opening of Jupyter Notebook to the final execution of codes – analyze, summarize, and the final conclusion. He gave me advice at every stage and helped in rectifying mistakes. From this program, I have learnt the basic concepts and knowledge for the Data Analytics field and a couple of software like Python, SQL, Tableau, and KNIME.
From the beginning of the program,
- Make sure you spend sufficient time to practice on the Jupyter notebook
- Try to understand and rectify the errors in the Jupyter notebook by yourself if you are not able to correct them after multiple attempts reach out to your mentor,
- Maintain systematic notes of the recorded sessions for easy access during the mentoring sessions or while working on a specific topic. Also, jot down new learnings that you hear and learn from your team members.
- Always stick to the deadlines for quiz and project submissions.
I was able to follow the above, along with my work as we were passing through the 1st and 2nd wave of COVID.
Wishing the beginners all the very best, work hard, and be consistent throughout the program to achieve the best in you.
