No matter which industry you’re in, everyone is tapping into data science and business analytics today. Read further to learn about Dr. Uday Pratap’s journey with Great Learning’s PGP Data Science and Business Analytics Course in his own words.
I am a dentist (BDS) with a Masters in Oral Medicine (MDS) which deals with oral diseases and cancers. I am working in a healthcare analytics company which has an EHR product with real-time embedded analytics (Medeva.io).
I loved Biostatistics, Public Health and Epidemiology as a medical student. This interest and the current industry focus on AI, ML and Big Data led me towards healthcare analytics over the past few years. I had a dental practice also for many years, but now I am a full time techy!
I have been serving as GM Clinical Operations and was responsible for clinical aspects of analytics projects for clients and EHR related analytics – but could not engage with the data and statistics parts directly.
I was always under-confident in the interpretation of advanced statistics results and had to rely on the remarks of the biostatisticians. I was always ‘poker-faced’ when people around me talked about Big Data, AI and ML! Being poker faced about the latest trends is not bad, but I worked in an analytics environment and clients as well as other members of the team depended on me.
I chose Great Learning as I got very strong references from my friends in the Data Science space. I felt that the duration of the program was also ‘just right’; not like 3-4 months in which one could not even understand the basic concepts. The structure of the program is very good – study through the week using material and videos and attend live class on the weekends. This was perfect for me.
Also the first time I spoke to my Program Manager, Archit – I was very confident that GL has done good research on teaching and student engagement methods.The program structure is good – recorded classes by excellent staff, easy app, website and quizzes, weekend mentoring sessions by experts and a friend who I could keep in touch with and share Program feedback and concerns (Program Manager). When I refer colleagues to GL, I have now stopped giving reasons – there are too many to tell!
The mentoring sessions helped me engage with the course with a sense of purpose, excitement and a very close experience to an actual class.
I have done more than 30 actual projects and exercises with the GL course itself. I have done more than 50 projects using public health data. I took up virtual data analytics internships with BCG, KPMG. I took up a course in Cognitive Quality and published a paper in the KPMG Body of Knowledge. I contribute extensively in our company’s analytics endeavours. I use tableau over Power Point for client meetings whenever possible. I have used Python for NLP, Topic Modelling, predictions, advanced exploration and what not. My confidence is at another level now!
I would suggest you get your motivation right first – if you get into analytics – you are not early now in whatever core domain you are – finance, healthcare, digital marketing etc. while you start with analytics, you must consider what unique value do you have that no other data scientist can have – your inquisitiveness, your niche domain knowledge, your communication skills, your visualisation skills etc.
I would especially like to invite healthcare professionals from Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, Pharma, Physiotherapy and other allied healthcare domains to adopt Data Analytics. We already are domain and business experts; by adding data science skills we become a Phoenix! (Data scientist + Business analyst + Domain expert).
Bottom line: Find your niche domain, and get on with your Great Learning course.
