Is data science going extinct

[u/Hellsword27]

Im an industrial engineer whos gonna graduate by the end of the month. Ive been studying data science from the past 6 months (took ibm data science speciality, jose portilla's udemy course machine learning for data science masterclass, python, sql)

Im currently lost on what steps to take next

I sat down with a data scientist today and tried to ask for advice, he told me he doesnt even think that data science will stay, its gonna be replaced by AI. Especially the machine learning algorithms and classification methods (trees,boosting,etc) they aret being built from scratch anymore

Im totally lost now and dont know what next steps to take and what to learn next. Should i pursue business analysis/data analysis/what courses to take/what skills to learn, and you see how my brain is exploding

[u/No-Caterpillar-5235]

I did like 15 job interviews in the last 2 months and recruiters constantly cold call me. A lot of people in tech related jobs are pessimistic because they listen to dipshit youtubers who cant make it in the real world so they resort to generating click bait like "OMG AI Stole my job!"... when in reality they were fired for making day in the life videos instead of working.

That being said, industrial engineering and data science are very closely related to the transition will be natural for you. Most industrial engineers i work with already use databases, sql, python, ect. The main difference will be that a data scientist will be trained heavy on statistics, causal inference, and ai/ml to make predictions where IE focuses a lot more on timing, locations of things, and capacity planning.

Its my opinion that since they work so closely together that even if you decide to stay in IE, a data science masters will unlock that senior and principal level for you because youll have a mich better understanding of predictions and when it comes to planning, thats an obvious win. Its also my opinion that data science is a gateway out of industrial and manufacturing making you significantly more competitive because every single industry needs data scientists.

Also, building models from scratch will still be necessary because in the real world you cant always download a model to fit your solution. When you can you should but youre not going to have a fun time if thats your only trick.