Diverting Into Tech

The Switch From Pharmacy to Data Science

Transitioning into an entirely different background may seem difficult but a lot of people have done that, Wuraola shares how she transitioned into tech.

Meet Wuraola Oyewusi

Wuraola is a Research and Innovation Lead at Data Science Nigeria and also a Pharmacist. She writes tutorials about Data Science on her Medium blog.

Her Transition Story

Her transition into tech was random. More like those things you give a try and it turns out to be interesting. She was looking at roles in Supply Chain Management, so she read a lot of job descriptions and found one for a Data Analyst. She knew most of the things on the requirements except something called “SQL” 😁. She decided to check it out and figured “if data was stored somewhere, you’ll like to get it out, SQL is how you run queries for for that”. It felt logical. Then she took a couple of courses on it and started getting suggestions to learn Python.

That was the first time it dawned on her clearly that there’s Data Science, there’s AI and there’s so much she could learn about it online. So she went school mode on it. If she wasn’t working, she was studying or coding.

A Day in her Life as a Research and Innovation Lead

She shared the activities of the previous day with us which were:

• Update from the team on the status of one of their data collection projects.
• Check in to ensure project methodology and timeline aligns with the weekly goal.
• Meeting on how to implement some client feedback on a data visualisation report.
• Response to emails, work process documentation, follow up on client/collaborators discussions etc.
• Hands on session with the Research team.
• Code review, decision about data labelling etc. for an upcoming research paper.
• Actual coding for a research collaboration and some note making for future research ideas.

Wuraola’s Advice to You

“Aim to understand the principles and don’t underestimate what you’re capable of.

Aim for those seemingly difficult well paid roles (the world is evolving, everyone is just learning a lot, the internet is your friend and deliberate practice is an edge) , so say yes to those things and secure the bag.”

You can also read her article: From Pharmacy to Data Science: All the cool things about career switching