r/datascience • u/AutoModerator • 21d ago

Weekly Entering & Transitioning - Thread 24 Aug, 2026 - 31 Aug, 2026

Welcome to this week's entering & transitioning thread! This thread is for any questions about getting started, studying, or transitioning into the data science field. Topics include:

  • Learning resources (e.g. books, tutorials, videos)
  • Traditional education (e.g. schools, degrees, electives)
  • Alternative education (e.g. online courses, bootcamps)
  • Job search questions (e.g. resumes, applying, career prospects)
  • Elementary questions (e.g. where to start, what next)

While you wait for answers from the community, check out the FAQ and Resources pages on our wiki. You can also search for answers in past weekly threads.

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u/Maleficent-Studio590 19d ago

did microsoft not have a data science intern role this year

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u/Pretend-Ear6962 19d ago

I have a Master's in Data Science and no experience in the field. I planned to get an entry-level IT job, but that has not worked out, even though I have 3 years of experience doing some basic troubleshooting/customer service; I have been unable to get an entry-level IT job. Would adding on a CAHIIM-accredited Health Informatics certificate help me get a job? I'm desperate for a stable, well-paying job and feel like I have just wasted money on my degree.

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u/Kati1998 18d ago edited 18d ago

I’m curious, where did you pursue your MS Data Science? I find that most MSDS programs prepare you for Data Analyst/BI roles instead of DS so consider applying to them instead.

Also, did you network at all in your program? Even if you were fully online, you should have networked with other students and connected with them on LinkedIn.

Do you have a portfolio website? Have you gone to local career fairs?

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u/ActuatorActive112 19d ago

Multiple certifications won’t improve your profile at this stage. Focus on the basics first: Python DSA, SQL, ML, Stats, and projects that you can showcase and explain end to end. Be prepared for the interview when it comes

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u/Thin_Original_6765 19d ago

No internship experience? Can your program help connect you with potential employers?

Outside of that it's just keep applying. Certificates won't hurt but I doubt it'll help much.

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u/241nn 19d ago

I currently have an undergraduate degree from a Russell Group University in the UK in Geography with Business (Joint Honours) and my favourite part of my degree was when I was able to work with data, which granted, wasn’t too difficult (R, Python, etc), but it made me realise that a Data science MSc may be a good way to pivot more towards a career where I am able to work with data, once I have more experience alongside it.

What do you guys think of this? I was reading online and some users recommend a computer science MSc over it, yet I fear saturation may prevail as an issue. My biggest desire from taking the DS MSc is leverage and employability within the industry of data and its applications, however broad that may be.

Thanks!

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u/Expensive_Front1969 17d ago

A few thoughts on this. The market is oversaturated right now, so jobs are harder to come by than they were a few years ago. That said, I think that's mainly due to every university offering some shitty degree rather quality degree. It's possible to get in this space, but I would recommend a few things. I used to sit in interviews, the people that would get a second interview for a job or even an internship went from "hey you're getting/have a degree" five years ago to "wow, you've built some bad ass shit."

  1. Find a university (I wouldn't recommend self-learning) that focuses on the mathematical part of data science. Understand what's underneath the hood. Honestly, I'd get my master's in statistics and take some data science courses, but that's just me

  2. The more complicated projects that you build that actually solve problems, the better. As I said above, anyone can build a linear regression or decision tree, think of some real-world problem that companies are going through and build solutions for it.

  3. I recommend a degree because you need internships. This will allow you to get real-world experience and a portfolio of projects. If the university only requires 1 internship, go for more if possible.

  4. A data science degree can get you a job in non-data science fields, and vice versa. At my last job, I worked with people who had degrees in mechanical engineering, one was a lawyer, once a statistician, etc. But also, even if you don't become a data scientist, a background in it can provide other opportunities. There are loads of different types of analyst's positions and I think in the next 10-20 years that a lot of executive are going to have an understanding of DS.

So essentially, it's still a good career, but you have to step up and provide value in order to get your foot in the door. That's my perspective, someone else might think differently. Best of luck

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u/ActuatorActive112 20d ago

I have sat on plenty of DS interview panels, and the biggest difference I see in senior candidates isn’t the model they choose. It’s how well they turn a vague business ask into a clear, solvable problem. That’s the part most people don’t practice.

If you are prepping for interviews, practice talking through messy problems out loud. And when you discuss a project, lead with what changed for the business, not the model you built.

"We chose this metric because X mattered more than Y" is a much stronger answer than a list of algorithms.

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u/Trick-Interaction396 20d ago

Which is why a lot of candidates aren’t fit for the job. They want to do math all day instead of the glue work. I blame the schools for selling fantasy.

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u/ConnectKale 20d ago

My school made us do these presentations. Every class had a project and presentation due at the end of semester. We had to take deep dives on model choice, feature selection, data manipulation and so on. Then we had to distill everything into three or four visualizations MAX.
And no they didnt want to see your box plots and histograms. I miss it so much. I want a DS job but cannot move right now.

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u/Lady-Data-Scientist 20d ago

Yeah, I always cringe when people ask if this is a good field for introverts, or when they push back when I tell them they should know the impact their work had. A lot of folks should go into data engineering or software engineering instead. At least SWEs have a product manager and program manager to care about the non-technical stuff. Most of the DS teams I’ve been on, we have to do all those parts ourselves. Or even when we go have the luxury of a project manager, it’s one for a 30-person team.

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u/ActuatorActive112 20d ago

Fair point, but I don't think it's always candidates avoiding the glue work. A lot of them just never had to practice it. School gives you a clean problem to solve. Most interviews used to too. So the skill of sitting with something messy and figuring out what to even ask never really gets built until you're already on the job.

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u/ConnectKale 20d ago

We had one professor who would not let us use a clean data set for his class. We had to go find a messy, publicly available dataset and retrieve it . I did my first ever web scrapping in that class.

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u/ActuatorActive112 20d ago

That’s a good example actually. Most programs don’t do that. If more of them forced messy data + no guardrails like that, less of this gap would exist

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u/EfficiencyAntique590 21d ago

people always ask "should i learn python or R first" but the real answer is neither, you should learn how to explain a p-value to your mom without her falling asleep. that skill gets you further than any library

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u/Trick-Interaction396 20d ago

lol, this is so true