A Whole New World — The World of Data Science

First Steps in a New Field in a New Country

It always seemed so exciting in the movies to move to a new country and begin a new life. While I had thought of leaving Israel in the past, it was as a distant dream and never a reality. Well, my dream became a reality when I met my wife when she was studying abroad in Israel. Little did I know that when I asked her out on a date, my life would change. Four years later, we were married and living in Miami. Long story short, I have moved to the land of opportunities and find myself having greater challenges and adventures than imagined. Welcome to my blog, a small town Israeli native figuring his way out in this great big country of the United States of America! Join me through my cultural shocks, hilarious misunderstandings, and learning to live and love in a new world.

A little bit about myself first. I grew up in Netanya, Israel, studied psychology for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, and became a school psychologist. Back then, my wife-to-be lived in Israel for three years before returning to the United States and us embarking on a one-year long distance relationship. I ended up leaving Israel and immigrating to the US to be with my awesome wife. She really is amazing and without her I’d be a completely different person (spoiler alert — not for the better!).

I wanted and needed a career change. Working in a field based on talking and listening in your non-native language is a bit more than a challenge. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in the land of endless opportunities. I saw a documentary about big data, read an article about data science and voila, I was hooked! I’ve always loved statistics and I thought to myself, “maybe this is what I should do!” Numbers are numbers in every culture and that brings some comfort in my new beginning. I guess you could say I’m no stranger to taking a big leap of faith with something new!

Now I’ve started a Data Science program at General Assembly in Washington D.C. It’s probably THE hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and it’s only the first few weeks of the program. There are moments I am really excited with the thought of learning certain topics, and then there are moments I’m thinking, “what am I doing here?” This blog will follow my ups and downs throughout this program, as well as, figuring out life outside of my comfort zone. I will also share what I’ve learned, data science guides and how-to’s, tips and tricks and more!

Before I started the program at General Assembly, I had to do some pre-work to prepare for the class. The pre-work was doing 50% of the data analyst path in dataquest.io. Because I like learning from different sources, I thought I would share with you a list of websites to learn Python, data analysis and data science. Ready???

• https://www.dataquest.io — a very detailed website that teaches you a lot of what you need to know about being a data analyst and a data scientist. They focus mainly on Python. There’s a free account that provides limited access to materials and two paid accounts — Basic for $30 (the Data Analyst path) and Premium for $50 (the Data Scientist path). I think it’s a good website and I highly recommend it, at least for the first steps in the data science world.
• https://www.datacamp.com/ — is pretty similar to dataquest in the sense that it has different courses for different topics in data science. They seem to focus a little more on R rather on Python, but they do have Python courses. Their free subscription gives you an access to more material than dataquest, and they do have a paid subscription for $29 a month that gives access to all the classes. I haven’t used datacamp as much as I used dataquest, but all in all it’s a pretty good website.
• https://www.codecademy.com/ — not a data science website per se, but for different programming languages and tools. The relevant courses are their Python course, SQL courses (there are a few) and you should probably go over the Command Line course (especially if you have no experience with a command line) and the Git class (it’s a little hard to explain what Git is in two lines, but believe me when I say it’s a super important tool for version control and development in general). They have a free account that provides access to a good amount of material and their paid subscription is $20 a month. I got along fine with the free account but it might be worth paying because their courses are really good.

There are a few good Coursera courses for learning Python and data science:

• Learn to Program: The Fundamentals (https://www.coursera.org/learn/learn-to-program) — an EXCELLENT introduction to python programming course.
• Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) — https://www.coursera.org/learn/python — another great Python class. I really like the professor in this class, he has great videos.
• A few other good classes: Python for Data Analysis; Using Python to Access Web Data; Using Databases with Python — all from the same professor from the previous course I mentioned.
• There are many other courses in data science on Coursera, I’m sure you’ll be able to find more. It’s getting harder to access courses for free, but it’s still possible.

There are many more free resources online. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it does give a pretty good place to start. While these sites and courses were extremely helpful in my preparation and learning the basics of programming and data science, for me there is nothing quite like sitting in a classroom with instructors. We learn the material and then get to work hands-on on what we’ve just learned. Of course, your mileage may vary and there is no one right way. For me it was really challenging at first (actually, it still is), and I’m sure it will be for most people.

Like my work at General Assembly, I like to think life and learning is all a work in progress. I am grateful for you joining in on my fun and adventures along the way! You’re invited to continue to follow me throughout this journey, the challenges, difficult assignments and exciting new material to learn. I can’t wait!

I would love to hear about any similar experiences, comments, or questions in the comments section below!