I am a firm believer in following your heart. That said, learning data science online was a struggle because I had no idea where my heart was. I would follow a beginner course and only go so far because I felt completely disconnected from the data problem they were working on.
This is where a pet project comes in.
A pet project is a venture, activity, or goal, especially pursued out of personal interest rather than because it is generally accepted as necessary or important. –Word Hippo
This is usually a personal data-related project interesting to you with familiar data where you look for insights and answer a given question.
In this article, I will list seven example pet projects to get you started. Some may require data collection, while others may have the data available to you.
How to choose a project
There are all sorts of blogs and articles online giving suggestions on project ideas to beginners. These are all well and good but how do you decide? The four pointers below will help you make a decision.