Data science has a branding problem. From the outside it looks like you need a PhD, three programming languages, and a deep love of statistics before you're allowed in. You don't. You need curiosity and a willingness to work through things in order.
A sane order to learn things
- Python basics. Variables, loops, functions. That's genuinely enough to begin.
- Working with data. Learn to load a spreadsheet and poke at it with pandas.
- Asking questions. Practise turning "I wonder if..." into a chart.
- A little statistics. Just enough to not fool yourself with the numbers.
- Your first model. Once the basics feel comfortable, the machine-learning part is far less scary.
Don't try to learn all of it at once. Get comfortable at each step, build a tiny project with it, and only then move on. The people who make it through aren't the smartest — they're the ones who didn't skip ahead.
