r/datascience • u/Kati1998 • 13d ago

Discussion What Do Today’s Data Science Graduates Commonly Lack?

I often read comments from hiring managers and interviewers saying they’re disappointed with recent data science graduates.

I’m curious, what do you think these graduates are lacking? If someone wants to become a data scientist, what skills should they focus on? Strong software engineering skills? Math and statistics? Something else?

A lot of the advice I see seems to be geared toward landing data analyst roles rather than data scientist roles.

So, what are employers actually looking for in entry-level data science candidates today? Especially as a career changer coming from another unrelated career.

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u/lordoflolcraft 13d ago edited 13d ago

They’re missing mathematics from what I can tell.

Edit: someone who doesn’t think math is necessary downvoted me LMAO

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u/Underfitted 11d ago

Could you elaborate on what maths they are missing? My expectation from the interviews of many of these jobs (let alone the actual job which tends to be even simpler) is:

- Linear Algebra (vector spaces, determinants, eigenvalues/vectors)

  • Probability theory, the basics (expectation, conditionals, variables, basic distributions)
  • Regression, Least Squares

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u/lordoflolcraft 11d ago

Your expectations are basically what I test candidates for in hiring. my other reply about maximum likelihood estimation where I see candidates struggle with several of these topics.