In an age of a not-so-hot job market for recent grads, you might want to consider getting better acquainted with big data.
Big data is radically changing the way the world works. Consider that 90 percent of the data that exists in the world was created in the past two years. Naturally, companies and governmental agencies of all sorts are very interested in analyzing this data for their purposes.
“Data analytics, and the importance of being able to smartly tell a story with data, is showing up in nearly every industry and every level of government,” said Anna Feldman, GenFKD’s Educational Strategist. “From tracking student progress in classrooms to gauging the success of digital marketing campaigns, big data is everywhere, and coming up in more exciting and surprising ways.
What is data and how does it affect our lives?
In general, data is a group of facts, that has been translated into a format that is easily digested by computers.
All of us create data in our everyday lives. When you’re on Facebook, ordering a car on Uber, using your credit cards, or googling something, you’re creating personal data that advertisers are very interested in understanding and using for a number of purposes.
The sum of all this data is known as big data.
What is Big Data?
As we transition to a internet-based economy, the enormous amount of data that’s being produced by everyday life is becoming known as big data.
The world has so much data now that we don’t even have to conduct sampling. Often, we have full data sets that can be analyzed, and that’s a statistical dream.
Of course, this creates privacy concerns as there really isn’t much privacy anymore.
Job Bonanza
Big data, and the digital economy should matter to you because that’s where there will be much job growth in the coming decades.
To properly sort through all of this data, many organizations will need to hire legions of people to analyze the unprecedented amount of information that’s available. Ultimately, that data can inform decisions aimed at increasing profit margins or improving efficiency.
The consulting firm McKinsey estimates that between 140,000-190,000 data scientists will be needed in the next few years. Starting salaries for these positions are often well over $100,000 a year.
This job bonanza won’t just be limited to data scientists. Anyone who has a good understanding of how to leverage findings from big data into practical solutions will be extremely valuable to employers.
“Having a basic literacy in data analysis or data science is going to give any potential job candidate a leg up in their job search in almost every modern industry,” Feldman said.
Takeaway: You can’t beat the robots, so you should join them
As the economy is disrupted by technology, many traditional jobs will disappear and will be replaced by computers. Make sure you’re on the right side of the coming digital divide, and cozy up to big data.
Having big data skills may mean the difference between employment and unemployment in the coming decades.
This article was originally posted on GenFKD.org
Photo by luckey_sun 
