Begin at the beginning and go on…
You know my name’s pronunciation, so, what now?
Since this is my first ever blog post on the world wide web, and you might wonder why I have decided to write about myself, I have to say “I have no idea. But, this piece of writing is about the beginning of my journey to the data science world!!!”
One day I woke up and I decided to start going to class from 10 AM to 6 PM all week?! Of course not!!
The world decided to shake me and throw me into this 3-month data science bootcamp marathon! after 6 years of studying engineering and management (bachelor’s in Architectural Engineering and Master’s degree in Construction Engineering and Management.) and many years of work in the fields of construction management, pavement management, and pavement design. After a week of classes and home-works I can say that this bootcamp easily rivals the heavy workloads of my hardest semesters at school.
After graduation with my master’s degree (2016) and working in the construction industry as a project manager, in 2017, I enrolled in PhD program in Transportation Systems at university of Maryland, college park to learn data science and data analysis concepts and skills and get a job as a DATA SCIENTIST!
Why? Since I could understand binary! Lol.
Well, I like mathematics, working with numbers, and real data problems. After one semester in the program, I applied for a job with the Maryland Department of Transportation, pavement management section that required mostly working with road inventory, construction, and condition data and was offered the job.
I quit my PhD program (I already achieved my goal and found a job related to data!) and started working as an engineer who mostly analyzes pavement condition data with SQL.
What was my original plan? I was happy with my job (although I often registered for different online courses like Udemy, Coursera and linked in learning to learn python and machine learning to become a real data expert) but my learning speed was slower than ideal. This continued until the pandemic (COVID-19) and its consequences (a cut in work hours and projects and working remotely) gave me this opportunity to make the decision to devote myself and my time 100% to learning data science and following my dreams!
So here I am! Halfway through week 2 out of 12 at General Assembly bootcamp and I already learned a lot! I am learning a new language from 0 (computer language) in a language (English) which I spoke only for 6 years now (Farsi is my native language). I really like my classmates and my instructors! The instructor assistants are the sweetest people I’ve ever seen in this 6 year of living abroad!
What I am dreaming now is to complete this 12 week of immersive data science program and get ready for the real job interviews in the company that I like! I will be 30 in 5 months and can’t wait to see what the future has in store for me!
So, I suppose this is the beginning of my journey! Over the coming weeks ( f’ 10 {weeks} + 4 {days} for weeks, days in DSI program’ ) I will post more about data science projects! So excited!
