If you were to give recommendations to your "little brother/sister" on things that they need to do to become a data scientist, what would those things be?
I think the "Data Science Venn Diagram" (http://drewconway.com/zia/2013/3/26/the-data-science-venn-diagram) is a great place to start. You need three things to be a good data scientist:
- Statistical knowledge
- Programming/hacking skills
- Domain expertise