Rediscovering Analytics to Build a Rewarding Career – Bikas Mohanty’s Inspiring Analytics Journey

In our professional lives, there are instances where we work on something for a short period of time, do a good job but then move on and don’t even consider going back to it at any point. However, even that limited exposure can sometimes spark an interest in the subject which drives you to learn as much as you can about it and possibly move into that field entirely somewhere along the line, turning it into a new career.

One of our former students, Bikas Mohanty, went down a similar path. While completing his B.Tech and MBA, he had electives such as data mining and data warehousing, as well as R, but he eventually found himself in market research at a startup.

“I had some background in analytics but I hadn’t delved very deep into it. So, I wanted to try and gain much deeper knowledge about data and how it works,” said Bikas. This prompted him to start looking for the ideal course he could take up to make this happen.

“After doing enough research online, I found that Jigsaw Academy seemed to be the best option for what I wanted to study. Since I already had some background in R, studying that more in depth was the ideal way to get started,” Bikas told us.

He enrolled in the Data Science with R course at Jigsaw Academy and that set him on his way. “Right from the start, the learning modules really stood out. The videos were also a great way to explain each part and that definitely helped a lot throughout the course.”

However, one of the most encouraging aspects of the program for Bikas was the bit that really helped get him industry-ready. “Once you start working in data, you have to deal with large datasets but getting a hold of these is not easy. Companies obviously don’t want to share any critical data and so we have to rely on mock datasets, which are much less detailed,” he told us.

“The datasets provided by Jigsaw were the ideal way for me to get an idea of how things would work later. They were at a smaller level, but helped me understand how things would scale later, once I began working.”

Revisiting analytics a few years into his career has definitely proven to be beneficial to Bikas. Soon after he completed his course, he was hired by Cognizant, which he feels has been a vital step in his journey so far.

“Not only was it my entry into the world of data, but it really helped me get my hands dirty, and really understand the ins and outs of how analytics works,” he said. Since then, he has moved on to Accenture and is now working in their Centre of Excellence, which handles R&D projects across multiple departments.

“I think more than anything, this whole journey has really helped me appreciate the importance of statistics,” says Bikas. “We learnt elementary stats in college, but it’s only after all this that I’ve been able to truly appreciate the fundamental importance of stats to analytics.”