Education · 1 of 5

The path

A degree plus proof you can actually do the work. Nobody hires from a transcript alone.

1. 1

   High school diploma

   Grade 12

   Take every math class on offer and start writing code. Python is free and runs on any laptop.

2. 2

   Bachelor's degree

   4 years

   Data science, statistics, computer science, math, economics or a science with heavy quantitative work.

3. 3

   Internship and projects

   During college

   A summer internship plus three or four finished projects on a public code profile. This is what gets you interviews.

4. 4

   First job with data

   1 to 3 years

   Data analyst, business analyst or research assistant. You learn the messy real-world part here.

5. 5

   Data scientist title

   1 to 2 more years

   Some people move up internally, some take a master's degree to make the jump faster.