Readers of my blog are about to see a lot of data-science projects. This series of blog posts explains how I got into data science and what I’m doing with it right now.
Brief Background About My Relationship to Data Science
Making My General Way
In 2015 and 2016, I had just married and my (now) ex-wife and I were struggling to have children naturally, along with other medical challenges. My skill set at that time was focused around visual design and creative writing. Out of necessity, I started exploring other career and knowledge pursuits.
My first inclination was to pursue an MBA at Carnegie Mellon, which increased my familiarity with numbers and the concepts surrounding data science.
While this route was intriguing, I put the degree on indefinite pause. The financial stress of student loans formed a key contribution of that decision. However, the world of data I encountered at this time was captivating.
Discovering Open-Source Mentality
With the onset of the cryptocurrency boom in 2017, I was hired at Komodo Platform. My initial role was ambiguous: originally, I was hired as a designer. However, out of company necessity, I would up working as a tech-doc writer and junior developer.
During my time at Komodo, I was able to cut my teeth in the world of computer sciences. I took a liking to the terminal, git, vim, writing code, open-source mentality, GNU-based systems and Linux, website management, working with developers, and more.
Dipping My Toes Into Data Science
Somewhere around late 2018, I began to see that my pathway in this field would head into the world of data science. I loved the way data science allowed me to mix many of my passions. There was a perfect blend of storytelling — both written and visual — mixed with the intriguing universe of statistics and computer capabilities.
In an effort to add data-science skills into my career, I completed a three-month Udacity Data Analytics Nanodegree. This taught me about Jupyter, Pandas, Matplotlib, Numpy, and more.
Enduring A Few Headwinds
In mid-2020, during COVID, my children lost their daycare and I made the decision to focus on family as a stay-at-home dad. The two years of time I spent with my kids was one of the best periods of my life. I will always cherish those precious moments.
A Brief Gust of Progress – UAF Research
Once my two children were old enough to go to school (early 2023), I was lucky enough to land a temporarily funded job as a research assistant to Dr. Lawlor at the University of Alaska – Fairbanks.
We didn’t know exactly how my skill set would be useful when I was hired. We spent a lot of time where I would make mock-ups of things that could be useful, coming to the conclusion that my work was not headed in a useful direction, and starting over.
About two months before the project’s timeline was over, I was able to put together an initial mock-up of some data-visualization tools for the arctic robot he was building.
Under his leadership, I ended up creating a combination of C++ code and an instance of a data-visualization tool, called Grafana, that displayed real-time output of important robotic data.
The project was an overall success (and I felt quite a sense of accomplishment). I posted about my feelings of excitement on my blog here.
My part in the research project wrapped up at that time. When Dr. Lawlor went to test his arctic miner robot, I was honored that he gave me a shout out during the video-streaming test session.
Grafana and the data-visualization tool I helped create came in handy during robot operation. I remember hearing that my work was particularly helpful in managing battery efficiency.
Focus Shifted for My Teaching Certificate
While I had scored a small victory in working as a research assistant to Dr. Lawlor, I couldn’t see any immediate paths forward as a provider for my children as a data scientist. My skills were simply nowhere near developed to the point of a professional, and the community where I live, Fairbanks, Alaska, cannot be described as a tech-job nexus.
Continuing forward in my passion for teaching as a K-12 teacher was the only practical path I could see. I was able to begin work immediately at a local school district and earn a real income while completing my Master’s in Teaching online.
Studying Relevant Topics During This Time
While going through the two-year journey to gain a teaching certificate, my passion for data-science continued.
At the Alaska Gateway School District, I was honored to co-teach a computer-science class. We covered related topics, such as large-language models, the terminal, Python, and small-time robotics.
At home, I began loading up mini large-language models and writing Python scripts that, in combination, allowed me to script the creation of quiz questions for my English students.
I read and completed all the exercises in a few books on data science, such as “Practical SQL.” I also enjoyed reading “Data Science Strategies for Dummies.”
Continue to the Next Post
Click here to read the next entry in this series.
Artificial Intelligence Transparency Report
No artificial intelligence was used for this blog post.
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