My Mum is Becoming a Data Scientist at 54
Having experienced first-hand the wonders of modern medicine that are keeping us alive for longer, my mum is taking the time to explore the opportunities her life has to offer.
At the age of 54 my mum is training to become a Data Scientist. Voted sexiest job of the 21-st century, it’s a career option that didn’t even exist when she first entered the job market. The term itself was first coined in 2008 by DJ Patil and Jeff Hammerbacher, then the respective leads of data and analytics efforts at LinkedIn and Facebook.
Tenacious and driven, my mum enjoys embracing new challenges. Between raising two boys and gaining a PHD, she has spent the past 25 years as a maths teacher.
Last year she ventured into the world of entrepreneurship by launching her own sports massage product, Wellbrix. She describes this experience as opening her eyes to jobs she never knew existed. Careers, like Data Science, that could provide ways for her to apply her mathematical ability to new challenges whilst earning more than she could as a teacher.
But prior to undertaking the necessary steps in making this career change, she encountered her own serious setback.
Just a few days before the application deadline for a Data Science course at General Assembly, she was hit by a car when riding her bike.
I received the news of my mum’s accident in Edinburgh airport, waiting to fly back to London. I arrived at the hospital the next day to find my fearless mother mummified in bandages, her head supported by a neck brace.
She had suffered breaks to both arms and a fracture to the neck, millimetres away from the spinal cord. And yet, through the pain, she was able to muster a smile to greet me as I arrived.
Unbelievably, she was still determined to submit her application to the Data Science course - with the deadline was just one day away. Despite every effort by myself and Nick, my mum’s partner, to convince her to rest, she remained determined.
Even as she was wheeled away for an operation on her broken arm, Nick and I were tasked with preparing her application for submission. Depending on the amount of morphine administered, she would try and inspect our work upon return.
Now three months on, Mum is making a steady recovery, working towards the General Assembly Data Science course that starts in June. Metal plates are supporting a number of her limbs, but with yoga and daily physiotherapy, her strength and flexibility is returning. Psychologically she has suffered too, but with pain has come a renewed focus to make this change in her life.
As a walking cyborg she may now be even better suited to a future-forward career in Data Science.
Nearly 10 years away from the UK retirement age it may be hard to grasp the reasons behind a career move of this magnitude this ‘late in the game’.
But the ‘game’ is no longer what it once was, as the current three stage life of education, career and retirement is being replaced by a multistage life. A life which rewards flexibility, demands continuous learning and remains agnostic to your age. Age is no longer stage.
With the wonders of modern medicine, the length of life, and with it time to explore opportunities, is ever increasing.
Born in 1964, my mum can expect to live for 91 years (according to the Human Mortality Database, Berkeley) so long as she avoids dangerous and elderly drivers. A staggering 50% of babies born in the UK in 2007 can expect to still be alive when then reach their 104th birthdays.
As the world continues to move at such a fast pace, the need to adapt is becoming all the more critical.
As Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott write in The 100 Year Life, “If you are in your forties, fifties or sixties then you need to reconsider your future and think about how you will reinvest in the second half of your life. Failure to innovate in response to a longer life will mean stresses and strains in your life as existing models are stretched uncomfortably over 100 years.”
Increasingly, people of all ages are embracing the opportunities of a multifaceted career and are taking steps to learn new skills and move in different directions, regardless of what stage of life they’re at.
Having spent 31 years at the Financial Times as a columnist and associate editor, Lucy Kellaway made the decision last year to leave the newspaper to becoming a maths teacher in a London Secondary School.
Kellaway has co-founded Now Teach, a scheme designed to help older professionals move into teaching. In its first year the scheme received over 1000 applications, with 45 places being awarded to an eclectic mix of professionals, from marines to diplomats, film-makers to athletes. Their ages range from the youngest at 42 to the oldest, 67.
Some applicants were disaffected with the corporate world, but not all. One applicant, who had previously spent 30 years working in the city, said, “I always loved my work. But I thought, how much time do I have left on the planet? Do I want to go on and on doing the same thing?”
There is an appetite for change and the professional role models of the future are beginning to facilitate this.
Currently, it may feel like a luxury to change career, a choice reserved for the fortunate few who have saved enough or lack the responsibilities of a young family, for instance. But as the job market changes radically over the next few years many jobs will disappear as new jobs, like Data Scientist, come into existence.
Some may fear that we lack the necessary role models to help guide us forwards in this new multistage life. The career decisions that worked for previous generations won’t work for us.
But new role models are emerging, my mum is one, Lucy Kellaway another. It is possible to change career later in life, and soon it may become a necessity. Companies need to be prepared for this change by providing their employees with skills for the future, whilst finding new ways to define loyalty — not only restricting the definition to length of service.
Attitudes will need to shift somewhat in order to ensure that ageism in the workplace does not prevent career changes later in life. Companies and employees alike must embrace the opportunity to hire older people into more junior positions. Diversity in the workforce is of greater importance than ever before and this includes diversity of age and experience.
My mum shows that with the will power and determination, you can make changes to your career, regardless of your age.
And now we’ll be living much longer lives — well, it’s worth taking the time to find the thing you like and will thrive at into the future. Even if that job doesn’t exist yet.
Rory is a Junior Consultant at Magnetic, a company that uses experiments to understand customers, helping clients to build better products. We work with organisations such as News UK, Royal Society of Arts and the Parliamentary Digital Service.
