On 3 seconds
05/12/2017: As is the case with so many young adults of alpha generation, I was unsure about my purpose in life and had difficulties uncovering it. But there was this nudge I want to tell you about.People say that big data and data science in general is the current top 1 skill in large corporations as well as some smaller firms. Insights business analysts and market researchers produce generate far more realistic business cases and strategies. That is something I know, acknowledge, and appreciate.
In the first year here at University of Plymouth, a PhD teaching assistant, Dom, referred to me as a great data scientist while providing our team feedback for a coursework project on which we cooperated. (I did 90% of the work. The results are at http://baam.schuzky.eu/) Looking back, the 3 seconds it took him to articulate the thought were likely the most propelling moment in that year, if not ever since. Because despite my general lack of confidence, I decided to agree with him and stick with the idea. It has shaped my identity until now and kept kicking me toward slowly actually becoming one. Through the following year, I learnt how to estimate linear relationships, got a data-heavy summer internship and scored my highest mark in first semester of year 2 in Econometrics. Afterwards, the subject has grasped me and does not seem willing to let go of me.
Continuing in both academic and professional paths, I always consult data to assess statements of research or other people. My horribly slow pace of speech became outweighted by the degree to which my words are backed and formulated. Consequently, I gained a great amount of confidence from the feeling of being good at something, not only in the specific area, but also in general.
Because someone who excells at a skill, of which others are aware, is suddenly allowed minor cock-ups in other areas; Even occassional rants seem to be tolerated, and more importantly paid attention to. I admit that I was expert at something among my peers since the age of 14. It started with IT hardware skills, moving on to a expertise in programming (I was able to script a web application, but reading the code from then makes me feel sick.), then writing in English, and ended with creative software use at the Technical University of Ostrava. But afterwards, in the more adult-world setting, these ceased to matter, due to lack of progress in the skill or opportunities for its application. I was aware of this, but did not develop any particular expert knowledge others would be able to appreciate. That is, until the 3 seconds. Now, I work with Oracle databases at a decent level, understand theoretical statistics properly, know my way around open data repositories, confidently operate in Bloomberg terminal software and am learning R.
I am a data scientist and business analyst with awesome prospects. Thank you, Dominic, for helping me find out.
