Data science is a discipline that uses scientific methods, statistics and computer science in order to solve business problems using data. Recently it has become incredibly popular, thanks to the multitude of open source frameworks, cheaper compute resources and especially the increase in the amount of data that is being generated and captured. Data science can be applied to a variety of areas, but its biggest impact recently has been in the context of business analytics and decision processes.

It is not accident that data scientist is one of the most sought after jobs, and one of the better paid positions. See for example the following report by Glassdoor.

If you are even remotely interested in data science you may find this interesting: Humble Bundle is selling a bundle of data science books for an incredibly low price. They cover a wide spectrum of data science topic areas. From the foundations of the discipline to applied methods to store and process vast amounts of data at scale. Check them out here.