This might be the one for me…the data science path?

Long have been the days of cold calling and re-running the same conversation scripts in phone sales of one form or another these last 10 years. I wouldn’t recommend it, myself, but hey, some people do well, and still others will argue that “all of life is sales.” Plus, they say, you need to have an income, and you can get some of these sales jobs with a legible piece of paper and the confidence that 1 cup of coffee can deliver for your interview.

It does beat the Amazon warehouse and Ubering, just slightly (I’ve been there too).

But the exploration for a decent income and sustainable line of work continues for me, having stretched geographies from Los Angeles to Lisboa and subject matters from painting to golf apps.

This time…this time…do I have something here?

“Data Scientist” showed up number 3 in Glassdoor’s recent “50 Best Jobs in America” ranking. That would be a confirmation of the idea, not the source for me.

I briefly tried a Python course online about 5 years ago, didn’t get very far. I’m back on another one, “Python for beginners” on Udemy. So far so good, it’s still early.

I remember a conversation with my roommate Muzza back in LA about 10 years ago, as I was about to embark on my 1-way flight to Portugal. We were talking about languages. My desire was to learn a foreign language, and I chose to go to Portugal to do it right, at the recommendation of my buddy Burch.

Muzza and I were talking about the value of knowing different languages, and he said something to the effect of, “the value of knowing coding languages is so much more valuable than spoken tongues today, it’s not even close. Like, not even a little close.”

Muzza’s done well. He got in with Snapchat early and from what I understand made some “good cheddar” when they IPO’d.

He was right. At the time for me it wasn’t so much about what’s more valuable. That was just my desire and I’m happy I followed that.

As Colin Cowherd used to say, “if you can’t be great, be interesting.” Welp, that’s kind of how I feel right now.

It’s not a bad thing. I’m into a lot of stuff. I’m artistic and romantic. But maybe it’s time for a chess move with an eye towards some sustainability (and cheddar). Some call it a “job” where you “stay.”

I’m taking this Data Science thing seriously. I see the 12 and 14 week boot camps available, like Coding Dojo and others. MIT has one. They seem like a solid option. I think they’re like $15k, give or take… let’s finish this Udemy course first and see where we’re at.

Can I build basic apps on my own after this? Can I run a regression?

A few years back, I remember driving Uber in Cincinnati, and I had a gentleman from Eastern Europe who was a Data Scientist at P&G in Switzerland. He told me you literally can get a Data Science job after getting what I suppose are “Lower Intermediate” type skills, after even 1 course. That’s what he said. That was pretty shocking.

This makes me reflective on culturally where I came from, and what I see. Where I came from, a Catholic middle class suburban background, studying coding was, like, are you kidding me.

You see so many of the very social, middle class American folks going into “business” generally in college, and this ends, typically, as consulting, sales, or finance.

My take generally is that you can do well in these, these are “career” options, but I’m not the least bit excited about them. I would also venture to say that, as tracked careers, on average they return a bit less than they used to. Would be nice if I had some Data on that Take Burger.

I saw an old family friend who is now in college this weekend at a wedding. Wealthy family. The guy goes to Auburn. I mentioned the Data Science and learning to code idea and he looked at me like I had 4 heads. He was studying Marketing (and partying).

But look at this Glassdoor list. You see Backend Engineer, Full Stack Engineer, DevOps Engineer, Data Scientist, Enterprise Architect, Salesforce Engineer, Data Analyst, etc…hmmmm.

Having a valuable technical skill sounds good right about now. Being on the stronger side of Supply-Demand labor markets sounds good too. Let’s see how this goes. More to come. If you have any comment or suggestion on courses, learning, getting started in Data Science, or anything else, please comment or email me at alkamista.projects @ gmail. — Rob