As 2019 ends, I find myself being very excited for all the things I will be doing in 2020. But, first, it is important to reflect on the past year, express my gratitudes, and learn from my mistakes.
I knew the first thing of 2019 I will be doing is going to be the end (perhaps) of my career in teaching. I left the a teaching position in the Bronx and decided to study for an actuarial exam (FM) full time. But, I always had the feeling that an actuarial career path was a wrong puzzle piece in the picture of my life. I still tried hard to see if that puzzle piece would fit though. But, I tried other puzzle pieces too through networking with people from different walks of life and starting to dabble in some data projects. I connected with a data scientist friend and he showed me the work he was doing for his company at the time-- SQL queries, A/B testing, coding with Python, influencing decisions using insights gathered from data. Is this the future...(my future?) I thought.
When I passed FM in April, I made another decision. I will not continue to take actuarial exams. Instead, I will pursue this data science thing full-time. Was I fickle? Do I get swept away with interesting ideas and new things too easily? In retrospect, it seems like I was simply following my instincts and my instincts told me that data science could be right for me. But, instincts doesn't really give you all the technical skills you need to be a leader in data science. Although I had already studied some Python and done some data projects on my own, I was lacking in everything a modern day data scientist needed.
Therefore, I joined Metis, a 12 week data science bootcamp to skill up. Really, it was the start of a career change and a new chapter in my life where I met new friends and learned the basics and the latest of machine learning and data science. Although I say that Metis was the start of a career change, I believe my mindset has already been set in the beginning that I will change my career with success.
9 months into 2019, I have left my teaching job, passed an actuarial exam, and graduated from a data science bootcamp. The next three months was spent in coffee shops, yoga studios, cross-fit boxes, libraries, networking events, at home, but I had one main goal. I was going to find my first full time position as a data scientist...or analyst.
I can say that I have been scouted by a company and although it is for an internship, I am really happy that a door opened up for me in data science.
I know that 2019 has been really focused on my career change. My career change, although scary, has been the one thing that remained constant throughout the year.
As for all the people who made this year possible, I would have to thank my parents, sister, boyfriend, and all my friends. I'm grateful for the life I had lived.
Coming into the new year, I think there is one thing among many things that I would like to work on. It is being aware. I want to be more aware of myself, body and mind, and of the filters I put in the world. I believe being aware has been an unconscious goal of mind and I am really happy that I became aware of this goal of mine this time around and am able to articulate it with words.
Thank you 2019.
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