The Purpose of an Education Isn’t What You Think it Is
Doing homework and passing exams teach you more than just the course materials, but they also train you to be a motivated problem-solver.
“One day I’ll work at AbCellera and make $200,000 a year,” I told my partner. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life, working in a medical lab, pipetting fluids from one test tube to another, running centrifuges, only to be making $20 an hour and having to work shifts 24 hours day, 7 days a week. I wanted more varieties in my daily work, analyzing and trouble-shooting issues, inventing a treatment or a vaccine that could save the world, working-to-live rather than living-to-work, and of course, earning a healthy income so I could live in a nice house, travel the world, and eat caviar for breakfast everyday. That was my dream back in 2020, a year after I graduated from the bachelor of science program in microbiology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and a few months after I started working at a medical lab at Vancouver General Hospital. The novelty of working in the real world and making money in the field that I studied in brought me so much excitement and energy, and I was dreaming almost everyday how much more satisfaction I could get if I kept on aiming high. Dreaming, of course.
Fast forward two years later, an advertisement from the UBC Master of Data Science (MDS) program popped up on my Facebook feed and it says “[i]n just 10 months, learn to translate data into knowledge and drive meaningful change for business decisions-makers across multiple sectors.” That was my calling, I thought to myself. In less than a year, I could be working in an office, sitting in front of a computer, writing formulas and creating Pivot tables in Excel, and making a healthy six-figure salary before I turn thirty. It seemed like a fast and easy way to make my dream come true, so I applied to the program. Two months later, I received my acceptance offer by email. My life was just about to change for the better, or so I thought.
The Calm Before the Storm
I took the summer before school started easy. I worked at my super relaxing job at a medical lab until the last day of August, and spent the last two weekends before school started going on a couple short road trips to Seattle and the Okanagan, British Columbia’s beautiful wine country. I was told by the program administrators to not worry too much about the program, and to really relax over the summer as school would be super hectic once it starts, and I took that to heart. No studying. No preparation. Just enjoyed life. Orientation week was quite nice. They were half days, I got to know some of my instructors and fellow classmates in an informal setting, and of course there was a free catered lunch. School was so far, so good!
The Storm Arrives
The first day of classes was an eye-opening experience, as my instructors just whipped through each PowerPoint slide during lectures as if they were card dealers at a casino. I remembered back in undergrad, a slide would stay on the screen for at least one or two minutes, and the instructors would explain concepts relatively slowly and provide some examples. Homework assignments were actually related to the lecture material, not some activities that required you to study from scratch and figure out the rest all by yourself. But now, labs and lectures seem uncorrelated. Materials covered in lectures are just the tip of the iceberg, and labs are like monsters, or beasts, that suck your life away.
It was a very challenging period of my life. For the first time in my academic life, I had absolutely no life outside of class. I was in study mode for over 16 hours a day, studying during my one-hour commute to/from school and home, and sometimes even listening to lectures while in the shower. It was so stressful and there was simply no time to relax and catch a breath. The contemplation of quitting the program came across my mind on more occasions that I want to admit.
I know that I wasn’t the only student in this cohort that was suffering though. Some of my classmates have young children at home, and some are still working their full-time jobs. How they manage to deal with school and other demands in their regular lives is beyond my comprehension, but I know that I definitely don’t have those extra stressors in my life, so I should be able to overcome this. Furthermore, I have a very supportive partner who makes three meals a day for me, drives me to/from school everyday, does my laundry, and takes care of all the chores at home, so I can fully focus on school. I’m also proficient in the English language, unlike some of my classmates that just arrived in Canada on student visas, so I don’t have to struggle to translate all of the course materials (although learning Python and R was as challenging as learning a human language) and completing assignments like this one, which requires a lot of language skills. My life is actually less stressful than most! However, I used to be a straight-A student. I was always one of the top students in class since elementary school, and I didn’t have to study very much and still get A’s in my classes. Even my undergrad courses felt “easy”. So why am I struggling in this graduate program?
The Eye of the Storm
Finally, winter break came and I went to Thailand for three and a half weeks. Everyday I would go to the beach for at least three to four hours, eat tropical fruits like papayas and mangoes, get massages, manicures, and pedicures. Some days I would even FaceTime my partner for a few hours just to kill time. Life was amazing. I was able to decompress, give my mind a break from trying to take in too much info in a short time, and sleep properly for at least eight hours every night. It was so relaxing and I felt like a human again. I also used this time to reflect on a lot of things, one of them being my academic journey and my future career goals. I’ve asked myself many times why I’m putting myself through this “bootcamp”, why I’m torturing myself, and what if I give up now?
Then one day, I heard a little voice in my head, you know the little voice of a guardian angel that you hear when you’re just about to get into a big trouble? It was telling me to not give up, keep persevering, and enjoy the journey to success. It was like my Eureka! moment. I realized that this academic journey is like a marathon and not a sprint, and moreover, it’s not just about learning the lecture materials, but also learning about the mechanics of learning and building the skillset in order to succeed in the workplace after graduating. Learning isn’t just about meeting homework submission deadlines and cramming for exams, but it’s also about gaining problem solving skills, research skills, networking skills, interpersonal skills, communication skills, organization skills, anxiety management skills, and so on. These are general life skills that are applicable in many disciplines and life events. I have to keep in mind that unlike liberal arts, data science (and other science disciplines) evolve over time, and can evolve extremely quickly. The principles like data structures and memory optimization techniques may always be there, but the scale of implementation, its application, its penetration and implications on society will change, and we as data scientists must evolve as well, and this is something that an education can’t explicitly teach; however, what it can teach and train are the skills that one could put together in order to produce a meaningful outcome. To put this into context, one person cannot save the world from COVID-19, but teams of scientists including lab technicians, bioinformaticians, microbiologists, and biochemists, etc. and doctors, politicians, logistics specialists, media relations specialists, etc. all need to work together to devise a strategy to conduct the research, development, and rollout of vaccines at a breakneck speed in order to achieve the desired result. If these people cannot work together, then the strategy falls apart and it may be impossible to get anything accomplished.
The Storm Continues
With about five months left in the MDS program, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and brighter each week. There are still a few more classes left that I still need to take (and pass), a big capstone project to bring everything together, and many mentorship program meetings to attend, but I feel that I already have the process under control, and I’m not too stressed out or concerned. I know what my instructors expect of me, I know how my body reacts to different stressors, I know how to gather the tools and resources I need to approach a new problem, but most of all, I have a strong support network that I can trust and that I can rely on to take me through the end of this marathon. The friendships that I’ve developed with my classmates will be invaluable for upcoming projects and later on as we get our new careers in data science started, and my family and friends that have supported me in my journey thus far will no doubt continue to support me over the next few months and as I enter a new phase in my professional life. “It takes a village to raise a child” is a saying that applies to adults as well in my opinion, and I am grateful to still be a child, with a village to lean on.
Summary and Final Thoughts
The journey to career success is a long and convoluted one, but there are some things you could do that might be helpful to you:
• Prepare for the school year by brushing up on basic materials that you may not have used in a while, or learn them if you have never learned them before. These materials include differential calculus, probability & statistics, and programming techniques.
• Develop a routine and create a comfortable study space. The routine ensures you that you’re not wasting time switching tasks too often so you can focus better, and the environment ensures that you’re not distracted by unnecessary things.
• Know who’s in your support network and tell them how they can support you. Your support network doesn’t have to be huge; even one or two people is fine, but let them know that they’re in the journey together with you, and what they can do to support your journey to success.
• Schedule breaks and activities that you look forward to. Breaks throughout the day are important to keep your mind fresh, so you can continue to absorb new materials, and something special to look forward to like a nice dinner out or a short trip on a long weekend helps break the routine a little bit, which could stimulate your head to think smarter.
• Make connections with your classmates, instructors, and industry professionals. These people will help get you through the program and get started in your career. They’ve been in the same boat as you, and know what it takes to support you through this journey better than most people outside of this “boat”.
• Find little things to celebrate (that you don’t usually celebrate) so you can keep yourself motivated and rejuvenated. These things could be completing a challenging programming assignment, or successfully teaching your puppy where to relief themself.
Do I have any regrets now? No. Do I still want to work at AbCellera and make $200,000 a year? Of course, and more than ever! Do I think I will succeed? Well that’s not something I can say definitively, but I am definitely more optimistic than a few months ago, and I, a lifetime learner, know what tools I may need in order to make my dreams come true.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article. Please feel free to reach out if you’d like to discuss your academic journey, or if you’d like to share your wisdom for learning and succeeding, or maybe you have a connection within AbCellera for me. Also, you can find me on LinkedIn here.
