I am accelerating my learning of data science by joining Metis. Metis has an accredited 12 week intensive data science program where qualified candidates can gain the skills and connections needed to launch a career in data science. The summer cohort classes begin on July 1st.
I am excited to embark on this journey and plan to update regularly about my experiences during the program. But, I wanted to put into words my reason why I decided to pursue data science. After all, I came from a teaching background. I will start with the reason why I decided to pursue teaching first.
I first wanted to become a math teacher because I loved math and because I was fascinated by the learning process of a new language, specifically Spanish, when I studied abroad in Spain. I also liked children. But, I found out quickly that loving math and the learning process was not enough if I did not enjoy working with children, among the many frustrations of being a teacher. Maybe it was the age group--I worked with middle school and high school students but only had prior experience with kindergarteners. Teaching, for me, was 90% classroom management, which was just horrific. A fellow teacher told me that it took her 6 years to be comfortable in her own classroom and to feel that she had things together. That was fair, but I didn't think I could deal with six years of pain. So, I left teaching.
Why did I decide to go for data science? I actually did not decide to go for data science at first and instead picked up studying for the actuarial exams again. I have taken P (Probability), one of the preliminary exams, while in college. I thought being an actuary was the logical thing to do, given that I had the math skills, an exam taken, and heard good things about being an actuary. So, I studied for FM (Financial Mathematics), another preliminary exam, and passed it on the first try. But, while I was studying for FM, I also explored other career options. Data science was one of them.
It was my search to learn more about different careers that caused me to shadow a friend of mine, who is a data scientist. I learned more about what he does day to day and what it took to become a data scientist and thought it was a viable option for me. My interest in data science was still fairly new, but I felt there was a lot of potential in the field to answer important questions that can benefit humanity.
I talked to a Metis alumn and heard really great things about the program. Although I am still not 100% sure if data science is going to work out for me, I decided to join Metis to find out. Through the admissions process and pre-work, I found that learning to code in Python is difficult, but rewarding. I learned that finding a data science project was also hard, but interesting. I have also talked to more data scientists to learn more about what they are doing.
Overall, I am pumped to get learn more about data science and to start the bootcamp. I hope it works out and in the near future, I will be working in a data analyst or maybe even data scientist role.
