A Millennial's Path to Data Science
My 20's have taught me a lot. Nobody likes you when you’re 23. There’s a lot of us 20-somethings still with differing amount of certainty about many traditionally adult life things out there. HBO’s Girls was a surprisingly accurate depiction of the post college Millennial. But just like every generation has before the Y2K kids eventually its time to grow up, and as my 3rd decade on Earth approaches this September I came to the conclusion that it’s time for me to find a solid career path.
Life wise I’ve always been kind of a Jack of All Trades, Master of None type of person. Growing up tall in Boston was pushed towards playing and watching sports once I hit 6 feet, but found similar interests in reading, writing, watching critically acclaimed movies and television programs, and of course hanging out.
Once I got over the being non-cooperative with authority element of adolescence I rediscovered my love of academia Junior Year of High School. Being forced to memorize Latin Declensions turned into being able to analyze literature and learn AP US History, and finally felt like I was back to my younger school loving self. Excelling in my Stats and Economics courses and coming to the life realization that the Wu Tang Clan was right and Cash really DOES Rule everything around me (and everyone), led me to decide to go to Business School.
I started college at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, but school was smaller and whiter than one of Paris Hilton’s pet. After three semesters there I made the decision to transfer back home and went to Boston University. Stayed in the Business School and really enjoyed my time there, loved getting to meet some of the brightest students from all over the world, learn from some of the best professors, and take rigorous and horizon expanding coursework.
Graduating with a very expensive piece of paper I took the first job offered to me in Sales. It was kind of like that scene in Glengarry Glenn Ross except every person I had to call on the phone to try and sell auto insurance was Alec Baldwin yelling at me to stop bothering them. From there I’ve had a number of positions; operations analyst at a Logistics Company, Customer Service Associate at a Corporate grocery store, Graduate Student, Project Coordinator at a Non-Profit, all of which I’ve at least learned something from.
Moving back to the City of Champions in Fall of 2018 I made the informed decision to really level up my career by 30, so started exploring my options. Time and time again while researching and theorizing what I picture myself doing Data Science came up. As someone with an analytical mind who enjoys working with numbers and problem solving immediately thought it could be a good fit for me. The fact that on listicles across the Interweb I saw that Data Science is a burgeoning and profitable field to be involved in in the 21st century I finally took the plunge and looked into specific programs.
General Assembly came up time and time again when looking, seemingly a good mix of new school type of coding academy. One Kickstarter Dataset and a presentation through the computer later and I was accepted. Then after getting my financing figured out decided it was time to commit!
So I write this a few months shy of 30, having already learned about a thousand new things and ready to learn a million more on my path to working in the field. It should be quite a ride, a ride in which after it might be difficult not to view the linear regression of the ride time or mentally calculate confidence intervals of how likely I am to survive.
