The Millennial Gold Rush for Data

Before you start reading, I would like to stress that I am not an expert in this field.  These are my ramblings based on what I have read, patterns I have noticed, and my own personal theories.  There may or may not be truth to this, and while I have done a decent amount of research, I do not work in this field directly, and cannot specifically comment on all aspects of it.  With that said, let's begin:

With all of the "hype" in regards to big data, I've slowly begun looking into what the growth for big data is going to be like as far as the job market is concerned.  What's interesting is that this entirely depends on which part of the market you plan to go in to.  For example, if you plan to learn about processing this data, your market value is very high from what I have read, probably for the next five to ten years, until we have the process mostly automated.  But if you plan to go into the gathering sector, there really isn't a way to determine how long you'll be able to rely on your skill set.  The reason for this is that gathering data is becoming more and more like a gold rush, instead of something long term.  This is what interests me, as I believe it is a very valuable skill set to have right now, partially because I believe more "gold deposits" will be found in the future still.  Thus I have been analyzing these "gold deposits" in order to gain a better understanding of what they are, where they come from, what their value is, and how to find them.