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ASThis is the EXACT order I would learn Data Science in 2026.
Hi 😊 my name is Dawn. I’ve been a Data Scientist at Meta, Patreon and other startups. And have coached 20+ clients into landing their dream Data jobs in the past year.
1️⃣ Learn SQL
SQL is a must-have skill for every data professional because it’s the primary way you get data OUT of a database.
It’s also a very easy coding language to learn, so I would start there.
Use Interview Master to learn and practice SQL (link in bio):
→ Learn SQL: www.interviewmaster.ai/content/sql
→ Practice SQL: www.interviewmaster.ai/home
2️⃣ Start building Product Sense & Business Sense
Product sense & business sense basically means you know how to use Data to solve real problems.
I would start building this “soft” skill early because (1) it takes time to really learn this, and (2) as you’re learning Stats and Python, you already have context on how these might be used in the real world.
I found the book: Cracking the PM Career to be super helpful before I landed my first Data Science job.
3️⃣ Learn Statistics
How much Stats do you need for Data Science? Just the foundations, but you need to know it really really well.
→ Descriptive statistics
→ Common distributions
→ Probability and Bayes’ Theorem
→ Basic Machine Learning models
→ Experimentation concepts
→ A/B experiment design
Check out Stanford’s Introduction to Statistics, which is free on Coursera.
4️⃣ Learn Python
Python is the #1 skill for Data Scientists in 2025, but I put it 4th on this list because I find that it builds on skills 1-3.
I learned Python on my own using DataCamp’s Python Data Fundamentals (link in bio).
5️⃣ Use AI-assisted coding tools
Many data scientists are already using tools, like Claude Code & Cursor, to 2x their productivity.
And also many companies are evaluating you on your use of AI during interviews.
#datascience #datascientist
@askdatadawn
