Disclaimer: I am not a data scientist. I just know a few, and I have some Google-fu. > Should I learn R or Python (nltk, scikit-learn, pandas etc.)? Honestly,

Disclaimer: I am not a data scientist. I just know a few, and I have some Google-fu. > Should I learn R or Python (nltk, scikit-learn, pandas etc.)? Honestly, whatever is most convenient at first. Getting a good grip on your first one is orders of magnitude more important than what language or system it is, and since convenience and ease of use help a lot with focusing one's attention on learning an mastery, that's what counts. Eventually you might grow out of the one you picked, and if you keep coding stuff you'll inevitably branch out to other languages and systems. All the data scientists I know know and use both R and Python (with bells and whistles). All of them. > Should I learn hadoop or focus more on machine learning techniques? From what I read, and from what one of those data people told me, hadoop can be a waste of time in many situations. Namely, for almost anything small enough to store and process on a desktop computer, you'll probably do it faster using something else (and with less headache). But hop to page 8 of this survey for a better picture from the horse's mouth: http://www.paradigm4.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/P4-data-scientist-survey-FINAL.pdf http://www.paradigm4.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/P4-data-... The rest of the survey I linked above is probably well worth your time as well. Obviously, take into account the survey was run and presented by paradigm4, and do your mental corrections and debiasing accordingly.