the beginning 

data science and other sorts 4 a noob from a noob

edit: woohoo medium.

so i’m a rising undergrad junior who is learning how to become a data scientist that can also pass for an engineer. but, what the fuck does that mean? data science has been such a hot buzz word for the past few years, and the term has been thrown around so much, that there’s no clear definition. some people who claim to be “data scientists” may very well not be doing data science at all, and the ones that actually are, have already been doing it WELL before the term was coined.are they just math nerds that can only write code in MATLAB? or can a “traditional” software engineer easily become a data scientist with just a simple switch of focus.

well i don’t know. at least not yet. i’m just a 20 year old undergrad studying cs and math @Rutgers, who in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t know shit. i mean damn. it was only 6 months ago where I learned what git and vim was (not that i think that git and vim are required to become a data scientist), and it probably wasn’t until my current internship @OpenTable did I know what to do with it. so, i’m pretty much a noob to this whole thing. engineering, machine learning, server/data infrastructure, data science. but i’m learning.

and that’s exactly the why i want to blog. i want to document my travels from the very beginning, into the deep ends of the internet and the tech community in hopes of discovering what it takes to be a playa in this game. i’m lucky enough to have had great mentors at Rutgers (shoutout to @BilalQuadri) and in the tech community to teach me. and hopefully, when another another young, asian lad who can squat 255 lbs (ladies, holla at me) and wants to know how to become a data scientist or engineer, can just drop out of school, read this blog, and achieve greatness.

but also, i want this blog to have a certain flavor. one of my favorite things in the world is r/explainlikeimfive. if you haven’t been to it before, basically, redditors ask for interpretations of topics that can range from the plot of the prestige to linear regression that a hypothetical 5 year old could understand. usually, an actual 5 year old can’t actually understand it, but you get the point.

and the way i like to learn something “complicated” is to first have an eli5 foundation of understanding, and then, build on top of that. it certainly makes learning easier and i want this blog to be all about that. noob interpretations of seemingly hard or unfamiliar concepts, that won’t dive deep into any theory. mainly because i don’t even understand it at that level anyway, but i hope it’ll be enough to get people started.

so take some candy, get in my van, and read bitch.