On October 21st, 2019 I joined She Code Africa community with the main aim of learning, growing and networking with ladies in the technology field. Asides that, I wanted to be in a community where I could meet and learn from like-minded people who are currently in the data science field or also venturing into the field just as I am.
So far, it has met and exceeded my expectations. In these past few months,
- I have received access to learning materials in data science
- Boosted my GitHub portfolio to about 3 projects
- Improved my technical writing with an addition of 3 articles on Medium
- Successfully and Confidently made a career switch into Data Science
- And most importantly, I was selected as a Mentee in the first cohort of the SCA Mentorship Program ‘20.
RETROSPECT
She Code Africa Mentorship Program is a 3-Months career growth program designed to pair experienced individuals in various tech fields with beginners who would work with them in growing their technical and soft skills.
I chose the Data Science course track and I was amazed at the excellent structure put in place by the team in ensuring the successful operations of this program were efficient and effective. Right from the start, there was an online briefing on what the program was going to entail:
- Mentee<>Mentor Pairing List
- Learning Path based on your course track
- Weekly Meetings with your Mentor
- Monthly Review Meetings with the SCA Founder
- Monthly evaluation forms
- Hands-On Projects
MONTH 1
I learned how GitHub works and the basics of data science using python. My course track was focused on functions, variables, inputs/outputs, loops, print statements and data structures. My projects include:
- Password Generator,
- 99 Bottles
- Guess the Number.
While working on this project, it helped in solidifying how the random function works and also the importance of conditional statements.
Link to project: https://github.com/MzSusann/Data-science-SCA-path-projects/commit/5a793039c56962349288e9133e8b752af2ce0cc6
MONTH 2
In the month of February, the course track was data science tailored. I learned some of the libraries for data science such as NumPy (Numeric Python), Pandas (Panel Data), Matplotlib (Plotting Library), SciPy (Scientific Python), and Scikit Learn. I found this learning path quite interesting because of the visualization as well as the calculations. The project I worked on was “calculation-intensive”, a lot of statistical functions were performed on the data using NumPy in order to make good analysis.
Link to project: https://github.com/MzSusann/Data-science-SCA-path-projects/blob/master/Dev_Salaries.ipynb
MONTH 3:
I built a web scraper !!! Asides just performing analysis on the data set (in month 2) which was readily available by my Mentor, I extracted data from a website and saved it to a CSV file. I really enjoyed working on this project because it exposed me to different python modules such as BeautifulSoup and request. To know more about this project, I wrote an article on it here.
Link to project: https://github.com/MzSusann/Data-science-SCA-path-projects/blob/master/Web_Scraping_YellowPages.ipynb
These past 3 months have been well worth it. I was paired with smart ladies, Gloria Okeke and Chimereucheya Jewel and had such an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G MENTOR Barri Sambaris, who was patient on us and consistently following up to ensure we were on track and meeting up with expected goals.
To the founder of She Code Africa, Ada Nduka Oyom, because of you and the She Code Africa team, we (ladies) are much more confident in breaking the gender stereotype in the technology space.
I look forward to actively participate in this space by giving back through mentoring, organizing learning classes, working on real-world projects, while also documenting my journey.
