Math is hard…
When I enrolled in college, I chose a major in communications. Why did I choose communications? I have no idea. That’s the honest answer; I have no idea why I decided that for my major. It could be because it is what I thought others thought I should study, or maybe it’s what truly interested me at the time. I grew up thinking that either you were creative or analytical, that those two sides would always be kept separate. As someone who was always in remedial math/science, I thought that my best bet was to go the creative route, to hone in on a topic that required little to no math, History & Creative Writing. So that’s what I did. Studying history during undergrad was inspiring, especially when I learned I only had to take one math course to meet my minimum requirement. I thought math was the most tedious and infuriating topic in school, and even Will Hunting, with his cool demeanor and witty remarks, couldn't convince me otherwise. I had bigger plans than secretly solving equations on hallway chalkboards. I loved history, and I loved creative writing. I loved creating a hypothesis and utilizing my research methods to prove it. I loved creating the foundation for a story and filling in the missing pieces with real-world information. I thought this was the path I would continue forward on in one way or another after graduation.
The first year after college went differently than I initially planned. I decided to move from New Jersey down to Atlanta without a job but with the support of friends and family. I worked a multitude of part-time jobs while job searching. I worked at farmer's markets, delivered jam, and worked at a startup. I finally landed an internship a year after reaching Georgia. I ended up in an industry that I was not expecting to be working for, in a department that I never even considered. My goal then was to make my way to the marketing department. Why marketing? Probably the same reason as to why communications, I have no idea. That internship made me realize why I loved studying history and creative writing. It is also where I learned that creative and analytical characteristics are mostly the same; it's all about perspective.
During this internship, I was introduced to the capabilities of data. Raw data was a new concept to me. I couldn't tell you the last time I opened an Excel file before this internship. I wouldn't know where to begin if you asked me what a pivot table was. My first manager would give me fake data tasks to help grow my knowledge. Through these tasks, I learned genuine frustration and the wanting to learn more. I was introduced to how we utilize data to inform others and make the best decisions in almost everything we do. Whether looking at statistics to set your fantasy football lineup or using qualitative data to better understand the sentiment behind your fans as an artist or team. For the first time, I began to see data as a creative art, but more importantly, I began to see it as something I have always utilized. As a history major, the two main things I utilized to provide a viable argument to my hypotheses were primary and secondary sources, which you could state is the same thing utilized by a data scientist or honestly any area where information is present. As mentioned above, it all comes down to perspective to me. Some will look at data and statistics and think ‘good enough,’ but I don’t think that the primary purpose of data is to win an argument (sometimes it is) or to see how good you are, but it’s to see where you can improve and where you can grow.
After my internship ended and I moved into a full-time role at work, I continued my data science journey on my own accord. I completed the FlatIron Data Science Bootcamp, where I learned concepts that I never heard of before, from Python to natural language processing. During the statistics phase, I hit a roadblock. Terminology began filling my head, making me wish I had focused a little more complicated in previous math classes. P-value, t-test, r squared, normal distribution, linear regression, modeling…. The list goes on! A couple of times throughout the statistics learning phase, I doubted if I should continue forward if I bit off more than I could chew. But then I remembered I have zero math background; why would this come easy to me? From that moment, I decided to continue with the expectation that I would get stuck, get lost, and not understand everything right away. It became kind of fun after coming to this realization; the confusion wasn't so devastating but rather exciting. I started to see the beauty of statistics and was able to grasp the concepts. The boot camp wasn't easy, and statistics was not the only roadblock I hit. During my capstone presentation, I fully understood everything I had learned. From my remedial high school math class to building out my own NLP sentiment analysis.
Deciding to learn what goes into data science took 25 years. I made this decision because data can bring about positive change and disrupt industries for the better. I think data can open up doors and push boundaries. I am no expert; most of it still looks like a foreign language. I believe it does not matter what you know; what you do with what you know matters. I made a pivot table in an Excel file four years ago for the first time. I had no idea the path it would lead me down. I never fully understood the beauty and the limitless nature that went into math and data science. In my eyes, I thought that everything within math was how to get from A to Z. I thought there was one way in every instance to get from A to Z. Little did I know that it was my choice for the path to take from A to Z and what I would learn along the way.
I never thought when I graduated with a history degree, I would become an Analyst. I also never thought that what I was doing with history was similar to what data scientists do daily! I continue to study math and new data science techniques for what I once thought an archaic topic is now ingrained in my brain as an ever-changing creative avenue. I guess the moral of the story is don't put so much pressure on figuring out what you want to do forever when you are 18 because you will continue to find excitement and purpose through topics you weren't fully aware of or have been exposed to. Will Hunting still doesn't make math look cool, but it's a hell of a movie!