My Regrets as a Data Science Student

it feels like forever ago but i'm really only a few years removed from my last formal data science class i still learn new data science concepts every day but it's quite a bit different since i finished my most recent master's degree in computer science i thought it'd be useful to take a page out of my friend at forrest night's book and talk about some of the regrets that i had about how i approach learning data science through my undergrad and my two graduate degrees at the end i'll also sprinkle in just a few things that i did well during these programs that might be able to help you on your own learning journey so definitely stay tuned for those on that note please shoot me a comment below with what you find to be your biggest obstacle learning this field my first regret comes from when i was starting to learn to program at the time python and r were on roughly an even playing field i think that python is really edged ahead of r in terms of volume of use and data science since then but back then i was completely torn on which one of these languages to start out with so i tried to learn both at the same time and let me tell you i just got super confused i got completely overwhelmed extremely fast and essentially i just watched a bunch of videos and i didn't implement any code it wasn't until i took a specific python language class that things began to click for me when i focused on a singular language i was able to understand the programming concepts and avoid being distracted by the syntax i also found that after i had intermediate knowledge of python i was able to pick up r java c and a couple other languages with significantly more e i believe that learning a single language well gives you the ability to pick up others more quickly because you have a clear frame of reference to to base your understanding off of you understand how programming works you don't just understand how the specific language works and that means it can scale your knowledge across many different languages so long story short i wish i had taken a deep dive into a single language when starting out rather than dividing my time my second regret comes in the order in which i chose to take my classes during my master's in computer science degree i pushed off a design principles course till the very end of my degree after i took it in hindsight i realized how useful it would have been in essentially all of my other classes that class built the foundations for many of the other things that i truly wanted to learn and honestly i avoided it because i thought it would be difficult i wish that one i had asked more people about the order to take classes and two i wish i would have taken harder classes earlier that i know would have led to more compounded learning returns bottom line don't be afraid of hard courses if they're gonna pay dividends later on so you've probably heard me mention my multiple graduate degrees a few times now to a certain extent i regret not exploring other options before jumping right into them between my two degrees i've accumulated six figures of student loan debt and while fortunately i can afford the monthly payments this is still something that i would not recommend people taking on without some very very serious consideration i obviously don't think i considered it heavily enough when i was making these decisions as i talk about my regrets regarding the cost of my formal education i think this is a good time to bring up this video sponsor 365 data science 365 data science offers high quality data science education and certificates without the bloated cost of the graduate programs that i took 365 data science puts a premium on sourcing courses from active practitioners and people engaged with the data science community hopefully like myself i've created a course there about how to break into the field i really wish i was aware of structured resources like this when i was considering going back for my master's in computer science i don't know if i would have changed the decision but it really would have been something that i thought over a lot more if you're interested in trying it for yourself i have a 47 off promo code linked in the description to this video one thing that throughout all of my education from college to graduate school i wish i'd capitalized on more was internships and research opportunities looking back jobs care a lot more about this experience than anything else that you've done in the classroom i won't lie i was a really good student i understood how to get good grades in the classroom but after speaking with a lot of people who could have potentially hired me back then they would have taken a c student with two very good internships over my straight a's with zero experience almost every single time well i think you can do both you can get good grades and also get internships i personally wish i put a lot more effort into applying to and interviewing for these positions so some people might be doubtful but i swear that i had friends in college and grad school unfortunately very few of them shared my interest in data one thing i wish i'd done differently was to make friends or join groups based on this common interest of mine it wasn't until my final degree that i started a club or i even considered joining any of the campus organizations as you can imagine i've tried to compensate for my lack of joining stuff by creating the 66 days of data discord and my youtube community i hope that students now have plenty of resources online or elsewhere where they can meet data science friends and learning partners one regret i just constantly think about is that i just wish i'd liked more youtube videos and subscribed to more youtube channels the last thing that i regret was not doing enough personal projects and documenting my journey again i probably made up for this by starting a youtube channel but at the time when i was in school i wasn't doing myself any favors in the job market i had dabbled in a few personal projects but i never organized them in any meaningful way or put them on github if you've watched any of my other videos you know that i think projects are the single best thing that you can do to learn the field and land a job there are so many cool things that i wanted to build and i found out later that i had more time in school than any other time in my life to build these things i definitely wish i'd gotten on the project train sooner and i would have probably learned more and had more to show for it before i leave you i want to highlight a few things that i did really well that i believe led to much of my academic success the first thing i capitalized on was office hours i probably pissed off so many teachers from monopolizing so much of their time but i really got a lot of extra information out of all of my meetings and interactions with them most teachers are required to do office hours so you might as well ask your questions and they'll usually help you spending time with my professors also gave me access to opportunities through their network and some additional help on any side projects that i had i'd often go in with questions from the few personal projects that i was working on and if they weren't super busy they'd give me advice even if it wasn't a project for their class so the other thing that i benefited from was tutoring other students i found that i retained knowledge far better when i felt the pressure to teach the course material myself maybe one of the reasons why youtube resonated with me so much so i know this video is about my regrets but honestly i'm not really someone who thinks like that i like where i'm at now and there's no way of knowing how things would have turned out if i did things in the past differently i wouldn't necessarily do things the same way but i also wouldn't want to change a thing because those mistakes made me who i am now very philosophical i know regardless i hope that learning from my shortcomings makes this journey more rewarding for you and as always thank you so much for watching and good luck on your data science journey [Music] you

Channel: Ken Jee

Views: 19,089

Rating: 4.9653678 out of 5

Keywords: Data Science, Ken Jee, Machine Learning, data scientist, data science journey, data science 2020, data science student, regrets, regret, regrets as a data science student, my regrets as a data science student, things I wish I knew, 7 things I wish I knew, 7 things I wish I knew before starting data science, masters degree regrets, data science regrets, data science regret, should I become a data scientist, data science degree

Id: hcHSSyHbgMQ

Length: 8min 14sec (494 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021