Data Science
I love data. Every job I've had, I've loved looking how the data is used to make business decisions or how data could be collected or combined to make better decisions. By the end of my B.S. at UMass-Amherst, I knew I wanted to be in a graduate program that emphasized quantitative methods for solving problems. As I was reading scientific literature, I realized that I could pursue a degree entirely devoted to working with large datasets and use that knowledge and experience to improve research and business decisions.
I'm currently pursuing an M.S. in Data Science through Central Connecticut State University. I've already gained experience with Data Cleaning and Exploration, Simple and Multiple Linear Regression, Decision Trees and CART Analysis, Model Evaluation, and Customer Profiling. I've used Python, R, and SPSS to do analyses and interpreted the results.
Since the remainder of my coursework can be completed online, I'm actively looking for a company to start my career with that will be a match for my skills and interest in working with larger datasets. I'm a quick and self-motivated learner, so business understanding won't be a barrier to my success, but I am hoping for a team with an opportunity to be mentored so I can learn from the best in the industry.
Software Development
Tangential with my interest in Data Science is Software Development. As I mentioned before, I'm a self-starter with plenty of motivation to learn new things, and programming languages have been my subject of choice. I've been programming with Python for two years now and though my focus is shifting towards its use in Data Science, I also have had a lot of fun setting up websites with Django and running Flask servers to interact with APIs.
I started with Java through Android development, and though I've slowed with developing Android apps to earn an Oracle certification in Java, I hope to get back to developing new apps and improving my existing apps. My current Java project is a clone of a popular board game and it's helping me solidify Java's standard library as well as Object-oriented Programming in general. After I build the basics, I think it would be awesome to program the computer to play against you, but that's out of the scope for the MVP!
I write or at least read code everyday and as you can see below, I have dabbled in a wide variety of languages. It may sound like I'm 100% sold on being a Data Scientist, but the truth is I would love to be more cross-discipline than sitting around crunching numbers all day. The most important thing about Data Science is being able to translate results into something everyone can understand and digest, and languages like d3.js have changed the game as far as data visualization. I would love to be on a team that was responsible for building awesome tools that span disciplines, and I hope to realize that dream early in my career.
