To Data Science or Not To Data Science
A few moons ago, I decided to finally take the jump and start my Data Science coding program through Flatiron. It wasn’t an easy choice, but after a few conversations with friends and family I realized it was time for me to move on from my position as a mortgage loan officer. If you are in a place in your life where you are thinking of making the jump to tech, this’ll be the blog post for you.
To give some background about myself, I come from the business world. I received my undergraduate and master degree in business administration. I’ve worked in sales and operations in a few different industries. You know, business things.
So why make the jump?
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed what I was doing as a mortgage loan officer. My company focused on helping people buy homes through the 0% down-payment USDA home loan program. We primarily helped people who were purchasing their first home, which was incredibly rewarding to be a part of that process. More than once I was told that before talking to me, the client never thought that they would be able to purchase a home. It’s moments like these that really make you enjoy what you do.
The problem that I ran into though is that I enjoyed tinkering with my workflow to try and make each one of my tasks as efficient as possible. Emails? Templates made. Underwriting conditions? Templates made. Income calculations? Templates + excel document made. One off property issues? Wrote down every experience our loan officer team had with property issues and compiled them into a notebook.
As I kept tinkering with my workflow to make it as efficient as possible, I realized there had to be a better way to do some of our tasks. After having a conversation with a coworker, he told me about Automate the Boring Stuff by Al Sweigart (2). I looked into the series and all I can say is that I was hooked.
It wasn’t just the day to day applications of Python that I liked, but also the analytical capabilities it contained as well. I’ve done analytical work throughout my career in some capacity, but with Python and the packages available, analysis gets taken to a whole other level. With my love of finding efficiencies, it seemed like Python would be a great fit in enhancing my analytical skills as well.
Does it make sense for you?
I won’t lie, it was a hard choice for me to make. I liked my job, my coworkers, and my company. I was comfortable. But when I took a step back and looked at everything, I knew that making the jump and starting the Data Science program with Flatiron was the right choice to make. I had a passion for what they were teaching and I was at a good point in my life to make the career transition. My thought process was something close to answering the following questions.
- Did I enjoy coding and the processes involved with Data Science?
- Was I in a good position in my personal and financial life to make the career transition?
- Did I believe the skills I would gain from learning Data Science would complement the ones I currently have? (The perk of having a hard skill, like programming, can not be understated as well.)
For me, the answer to all of these questions was yes. And here I am in my second week of the Data Science program through Flatiron!
The choice won’t make sense for everyone, but hopefully I helped a few of you out there in your decision on whether or not to take the jump into the world of data science.
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