Big Data Scientist: Sexiest Job of the 21st Century

Hey everyone, just wanted to pass along the info that what we learn in this class could make all of us very rich someday! (Caveat being you have to go through grad school in the field if you want the really big bucks) I was stumbling through the Yahoo top stories as per my usual daily routine and clicked on this article with the headling "Sexiest Job of the 21st Century": http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/sexiest-job-21st-century-122238562.html. This video is part of a twice-daily Yahoo feature on big data titled "Big Data Download" which are videos featuring big-data topics and can be found at this link: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/big-data-download/. The sexiest job is not a doctor or lawyer or any other traditional high-paying job, but that of the data scientist, those who are experts in the field we are studying in this class. According to the article/video, the average pay of a data scientist straight out of grad school is $225,000, which would put you in the upper 1% of earners in the country at 26 or 27 years old (if you go to school straight through). In fact, one CEO described people with the big data scientist skillset as "unicorn-like". The CEO even told the story of a data scientist who was lured away from his firm by Microsoft with a $650,000 salary plus bonus. I have to think I would have left in a similar situation.

This job is so high-paying due to the insane demand for people with the skills vs. the lack of supply of people with the skills. I know this is repeating info from a previous blog post but I will reiterate it: McKinsey estimates that there are 190,000 fewer people with analytics experience than are needed by companies in the United States. The good news for us IE majors is that the article emphasizes that companies are not looking at strictly computer science majors for these jobs. They are looking for anyone in any major who can bring a different way of looking at data. The video tries to claim there is "no school or major you can go to to learn to be a data scientist" but I think that will change in the coming years as schools realize the value of this field of study and the benefits it offers graduates. I only hope that Auburn continues pursuing this field with classes in future years such as the one we are taking and perhaps someday becomes a school which offers Big Data Analytics as a major, helping enhance our university's profile as an academic institution.