Bond! James bond!! Isn’t it a popular dialogue? From the day movies like James Bond started ruling the public, some badass professions started to leave an impact on the viewer’s mind. Being an intelligence officer like James Bond is still a dream of many. Just because movies have a deep impact on us, many of us often like to choose a career path which matches exactly to our favorite movie character for example some of us wants to travel the world like Bunny from the movie “Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani ” and want to become a scientist like Tony Stark from “Iron Man”. But not everything we imagine happens in reality because the expectation is always far away from reality. In reality, most of the student’s career is decided by their parents and most parents prefer the traditional way of career path for their children. Traditional path? Yes, that old pattern of Engineering and Medical. But for some students, these options lead to a not so bright future.
So career options should be of personal choice and not of the choice which is given forcefully.
A hobby is something that gives peace of mind. So isn’t it wonderful to get income from hobbies? Most of the people are in depression because of a lack of jobs. This issue is on fire for a couple of years. But it isn’t a problem and the thing is modern problems need modern solutions. Most job seekers have learned or are learning something which had demand before and it is outdated and no demand now. So basically candidates with updated knowledge, good communication skills, and some extra skills are mostly preferred. Pursuing all these skills seems difficult but it isn’t indeed! Here we have to use our hobbies as a weapon to achieve our target. Like if anyone is obsessed with reading then reading the latest books in English can help to update your knowledge as well as to narrow the communication barrier. Then someone fond of learning new things can go for any foreign language and this too can help one to fulfill the extra skill set.
We already have been through the starter and the dessert so it’s time to jump to the main course “career”. Well, this word sounds dreadful but it is quite essential to survive in the crowd. Everyone has hobbies, so do I. Two of my hobbies led me to a potential career option. One was coding and the second was squandering time on social media! Yes, it sounds stupid but these hobbies made me stand and speak out loud confidently in the crowd. In this article, we will explore how hobbies can shape our future!
Coding? What it is? We, humans, use different languages to communicate with each other but what if we want to communicate with the computer? Languages used by us will not work to communicate with computers. The computer doesn’t recognize our language made up of words hence it simply understands the language of 0 and 1. So the different language developed to communicate with computers which are easy for a computer to understand is nothing but coding. Coding is often referred to as programming language and once you start communicating with a computer the talk is never-ending. The coding has become a must skill to seek a job in the engineering field and also beneficial to nontechnical job seekers. Every latest technology we figure out is built with coding. Let it be an app or a website we visit or maybe a new advanced appliance we buy and everything related to computers is the result of coding. “Whitehat jr” is the latest platform developed for kids of age group 6-14. See now kids too are learning to code and this simply represents the tough competition in the future. Coding is something that can lift a career from the scratch. How? Let us understand this. There are so many types of coding, for example, C programming language which is the mother of all programming languages. Then comes C++, java, python, PHP, R, and so on….! These languages are used for different purposes like C is used in the operating system, java is used for IoT, javascript is used in web development, ethical hacking, etc but the field which thrills the most and will have high demand in future or maybe it will be the future of technology and will commence of the new age is “Artificial Intelligence” and we will witness the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The journey from code to AI is quite interesting, mesmerizing, astonishing, enchanting, and full of surprises. So let us take a ride to explore the future.
This is not just an emerging sector but will create around 75 Million jobs and also will create some new professions by 2022 all around the world. What is AI? In simple words, the training is given to machines to perform all tasks done by humans, and whatever qualities a human has given it all to the machine. Training a machine is like training a kid to learn and do simply too complex things. So once the machine has been trained it will do everything that we do! Okay, now how it works?
Machine learning is a part of AI which is widely used by professionals. Machine learning is something that gives the ability to machine to learn automatically and to use those learning experiences to improve for better performance. The process is like the developer feeds a huge amount of data to the machine learning system then asked to perform a task then the machine learning performs deep analysis on the provided data, collects the pattern, observes the pattern, and based on past and current statistics of information makes a decision or predicts the result and learns more from the pattern and become better. This whole process is automated, no manual assistance is provided. How this process takes place? Through neural network which works just like a human brain. A neural network is a set of the algorithm. The human brain recognizes the object based on shape, size, and color, and in the same manner, the neural network recognizes objects on the same basis and also can differentiate between two objects so this all process is the result of coding. Python and R are widely used programming languages in machine learning.
This kind of automation is seen everywhere these days. The everyday use applications of AI are as follows:
1) Google assistance and Alex and Siri
2) Smartphones and televisions
3) Email communications
4) Chatbots on websites
5) Music or product recommendations
6) Many more…
These are the use of AI in everyday life now let us see some advanced applications of AI.
1) Robotics
2) Space research
3) Transportation
4) Healthcare
5) Food industry
6) Many more…
What are these applications? Let us explore more!
In 2017 Saudi Arabia became the first country in the world which gave citizenship to a humanoid “Sophia”. Sophia is a robot that almost looks like a human developed by Hanson Robotics. Sophia can speak, answer, and even can give facial expressions like a human. Boston Dynamics is a company that works on robots which can perform physical tasks as humans like walking, running, opening and closing door and even fighting. These are the wonder of AI. AI is not limited to robots but it is used in self-driving cars and also it can help in healthcare to diagnose diseases real quick. AI is capturing each sector and hence is a vital part of the future. AI is more than we can think.
Now the question arises is how to start a career in this sector? Who can pursue this career? Can a student from nontechnical background go for this career option?
Too many questions and the answer is QUORA! Every aspirant who wants to make AI a career can learn about AI despite educational background. How to learn AI? The answer is to learn Machine learning. How to learn machine learning? The answer is to learn coding, statistics, and probability. How to learn to code? The answer is YouTube. Whatever is mentioned above can be learned on YouTube for free. The CEO of Tesla Elon Musk says “we don’t need to go to college to learn”. Self-learning is the best way to learn coding and machine learning! We can get full courses on YouTube offered by some channels. Intellipaat, Edureka, Simplilearn are the best platforms to learn coding and machine learning for free. We can either learn python or R programming language to learn Machine Learning. There are some websites also on Google which offer free courses but you have to pay for the certificates and the websites are Coursera, Udacity, Great Learning, etc. If someone wants to take the course offline or a classroom course then Bangalore is the best place to learn further as it is the IT city of India. The fee structure varies on institute level from 60,000 to 1,00,000 rupees. So it is easier to learn online for free. Once you get done with machine learning we will see job opportunities like Data Scientist, Machine Learning expert, AI specialist, AI engineer, etc and these are booming professions and are top job profiles high in demand according to LinkedIn. We have explored the AI more than enough now let us move towards the second important part of our extended journey.
The world is changing continuously and the way of living also. Peaceful lives given by Mother Nature are replaced by the hectic lives given by WhatsApp posts. The world has witnessed the transformation of long talks of loved ones in garden to 30-second stories and posts. The world has transformed into a digital world. The quotes are also changed from “think twice before you talk” to “think twice before you post”. We live in a digital era where there are two types of people, one is living in virtual reality and the other is keeping the first type of people busy in virtual reality. Due to this digital media, the world is an open book now, concealing no secrets but yet people are incognito. In this digital world, intelligent people are becoming more intelligent, and lazy people are becoming lazier. We don’t even take efforts to collect food from the instead we order food online. Everything which was time-consuming is just one click away! Just one click and the world will be waiting for you outside your door. This is because of the use of the internet on a huge scale and due to this the internet one can easily do transactions or we can attend meetings with the people on the other side of the planet or learn anything and everything from each corner of the world! Life is becoming easy but meanwhile being a normal human in the digital world is a blessing because this has turned humans into machines or maybe lazy machines! In this mess the question arises that can we use this pattern for our benefits? The one who will dig it down and finds out the key will get the power to rule the future. I too was a social media addicted idler then I figured out how to turn this whole scenario to get a potential career option! And the answer was “Digital marketing”! The booming and high in demand job profile is here now. It is booming because net users are increasing every year. According to a survey, the digital economy is increasing 10 times faster than the traditional way of economy and the growth rate of this industry is 40% and will create a plethora of new jobs.
Now, what is digital marketing? Simply it is a way to take your business online and also marketing online by letting people know about your business through digital platforms or in a few words, do marketing on the digital platform. For the sake of simplicity let us take an example. Adam is the owner of a grocery shop, his business is going good but he wants to increase the sales so what is the ultimate option to drive sales? Taking his business online can help him to create awareness about his shop and will help to increase sales. Okay, but how? First of all, he would have to hire a digital marketer then that marketer will see the rest of the stuff. So what will the digital marketer do is he will create a website of the owner’s grocery shop. What will he add to it? He will add everything about the shop on the website including location, contact number, some pictures of products, product details, offers, feedback from current customers, etc so if someone is searching for something related to Adam’s business his business will be shown to that person at right time. Hence half of the work is done now Adam has created his presence online and the remaining work is of marketing. How? By advertising online! It is reliable and cost-effective. Where can Adam show advertising of his grocery shop? The answer is everywhere!
There are types of ads knows as Google ads which are divided into some types like Search ads (ads are shown on search engine when someone is searching the related business), Display ads (ads will be shown on websites), video ads (ads will be shown on YouTube), App ads (ads are shown in apps), shopping ads (ads are shown in shopping websites), etc these all are paid ads. So in this way, Adam will gain new customers in a few months and sales will be increased. The sector of digital marketing is so vast and the subtypes of digital marketing are as following:
1) SEO( search engine optimization)
2) SEM( search engine marketing)
3) Social media marketing
4) Content marketing
5) Email marketing
6) PPC(pay per click)
7) Affiliate marketing
8) Many more…
The number of subtypes of digital marketing represents an equal number of job profiles! For example, SEO and SEM specialist, social media marketers, etc and this reflects that there are a huge number of job opportunities.
How to start a career in this sector? What course should be taken? The answer is the same “Self Learning”.
How to study digital marketing for free? Some websites on Google offer free courses of digital marketing for free for example, Google Garage offers a 40 hours long course of digital marketing for free with a free certificate, the Facebook blueprint also offers courses for free. And on YouTube, some channels like Simplilearn, Edureka, etc offer full digital marketing courses for free. Once you get done with Google digital marketing course to make your CV effective one should learn Google ads on Google skill shop for free. In these Google ads courses, you will learn insights into ads, how ads work, how bidding work, what are keywords, etc. then to make your CV a little more effective learn Google Analytics. The courses of Google Analytics are also free to learn and you will learn how your ads campaign works, how your website works if it is not working what we should do etc. So the set of Google digital marketing courses, Google ads certifications, Google Analytics, etc will empower your CV!!! And if someone wants to get classroom courses then can do in any institute nearby. Some good institutes offering the 6 months digital marketing courses with fees structure from 40,000 to 90,000(fees varies as per institutes) are as follows:
1) Learning catalyst
2) NIIT
3) EduPristine
4) Many more….
This sector is the best way to build the future! Digital marketing gives chance to creative people to present their creativity and one can use their hobby to achieve tasks for example if someone is a writer then there is a chance to use this skill in content writing, then someone’s hobby is to travel then one can does this job on freelancing and freelancing means to eat sleep work travel and repeat! If the hobby of someone is to create videos then it could be used to create advertising videos and the opportunities are never-ending just you need to explore what you have and what you can do with it!!
These days it has become necessary to search for multi income sources rather than one and this isn’t possible with just one degree or one skill. So the new idea that should be introduced to learners is “pursuing multi career options” and not only pursuing multi career but adding those careers to get one powerful career option. Let us see how this idea applies to AI and Digital Marketing.
If we combine AI and Digital Marketing the result will be conspicuous that is “AI for Marketing”!! Traditional marketing was tedious until the advent of AI in marketing. But AI accelerated marketing to another level. The use of Machine Learning is continuously increasing in marketing. Why? Just because it can perform complex work within a few minutes like from creating a website to streaming ads on social media everything is done by machine learning. How? Machine learning uses previous data and past to predict the future of your business and it can perform decision making as well. If you use AI for marketing it manages everything from start to end for example suppose Machine Learning creates a website so what it exactly does is first it performs analysis using data then it creates a suitable content itself related to business then it bids automatically for space on search page then it launches website then supervise the working of the site and if some changes are needed then it sends a notification to the owner and with permission of owner it makes changes. So from the creation of the web to analytics, everything could be done by machine learning very accurately.
Some other uses of AI in marketing are as follows:
1) AI chatbots
2) Email marketing
3) Streaming ads
4) Marketing content
5) Processing data
6) Understanding and predicting the behavior of the customer
7) Many more…
If we are browsing a particular thing on Google or YouTube continuously then we see ads of related businesses everywhere on the digital platform so this is done by machine learning. We get recommendations on shopping sites related to what we are searching for and this is also done by machine learning.
AI is changing the way of marketing so let us use AI for our welfare!!
This is how your hobbies can uplift your career! And if you don’t have any idea about what to do or not sure about career options then go and explore more possibilities, that is the only way to reach the best option for your career. The opportunities become infinity when the limit of your desire is a little bit more than the sky.
“Let your heart decide what it wants, your brain will find the way!!!”
