10 Weeks

10 weeks left until commencement and another step will be complete on the long road to becoming a fully fledged, degreed data scientist.  As the goal draws closer, it becomes much easier to count down the time left rather than all the little (or not so little) steps to get here.  First there was the bachelor's degree followed closely by a master’s degree in experimental psychology.  That’s the designing and running experiments then analyzing and interpreting the results arm of the field.  You know, the science part and not the talking to people on the couch part.  But that was just getting out of starting blocks on this journey.

Then came the working for your dinner part.  The blinders of academia ripped from starry eyes and the blinding glare of the real world.  Not nearly as much fun as it had sounded in school.   So careers changes are made as the struggle to find that ideal job, or at least one close enough to ideal to be happy, continued.  Even changing industries doesn’t fill help with the feeling that something is missing.  And so the soldiering on continues while experience is gained and corporate ladders are climbed.  But none of it is exactly the right fit.

Knowing there is a better fit out there somewhere only makes the search that much more frustrating.  It must be hiding behind one of these doors, right?  Then a window opens and this exciting new field of data science starts making headlines.  That’s it!  A whole field whose entire existence is about applying statistics and the scientific method to business data.  This must be paradise, but how to break into it?  

Where there is a need, there will be a solution.  Enter master’s programs for data science, and some of them are even designed for working adults.  Sure, going back to school will be hard; really hard if a full time job is also maintained.  Lots of late nights reading and researching, learning all those extra skills that haven’t been picked up in the various jobs or prior education.  Fun weekends and leisure time are forgotten while the degree is chased down.  Tenacity, grit, and sheer hardheadedness are needed.  But giving up now isn’t going to happen.  So the soldering on, in a different way than before, continues.  

10 weeks left until graduation and the M.S. in Data Science from SMU will be earned.  Not won or awarded or bought, but earned.  And new opportunities and new doors will be opened, and finally, hopefully, I’ll be doing what has been my dream for so long.

#datascience; #SMU