Hi Blinders, I am a software engineer with 6+ year experience. I have been dealing a variety of things. Mostly web (backend, webapi, sql, cloud), windows application (WinForm and WPF), and cross-mobile platform (Xamarin). Yup, C# and its corresponding frameworks. I have successfully led multiple projects and I can just settle down and be happy with what I have been doing. But... I recently found myself not quite satisfied with my job. I always have been thinking of switching my career path to data science (big data, AI and stuff). But I was too lazy to move forward for my dream. I just noticed that a friend of mind just went back to school to pursue master's degree in data science. That waked me up so hard. I thought of enrolling a master's program just like my friend but I noticed that there are multiple certificate programs which are shorter and cheaper. But I do not know what is the best option I can take. I found that there are many open data science position in my company. So I guess my best bet is to get a new role from the internal opportunities and get hands-on experience (getting hands dirty is very important for me. I learned it from experience). But I am pretty sure I have 0 chance to get myself to get a data science position since I haven't done anything related to data science. So, coule anyone please give me some piece of advice so that I can make a first step toward data science career? Thanks in advance!
If you can learn from Home, Self Learner kind, try doing OMSCS from Georgia tech. Basically masters but online. And it's valid as if it's original masters. If I were u, I would enroll to Machine Learning courses online and start learning shit. And then as you learn, and implement, stuff in your own time, you can ask for internal transfer....
Plus they have a MicroMasters from GaTech through edx. That can be a good start and the credits do get transferred if you plan to apply later.
Thanks for the advice. I was thinking of UIUC online master's program since it will start next Jan. I wanna keep this momentum going so I wanna start as soon as possible.