How I Got into the World of Data Science
Intro
I was 17 years old I had to leave my parents house to initiate my studies in mar/2011, at the time my main goal was: to be a airplane pilot.
When I left and begin my studies, I had the first problem… finance! I was alone, no one to help me, and to make things worst, I was under age. So, my father gave me some money to spend during this, approximately 42 days of private pilot course, and this money should last this 42 days until he arrives to take me back home for the next step of pilot’s carrer.
My First Big Discovery
Yeah! It was the Windows XP Calc!
I had X money, and it should last 42 days, so X/42 = how much money I can spend per day.
At first, it was simple, and solved my problems, but there were days that I spend more or less than I had, and everytime I had to calculate the amount, the averages again and again.
My Second Big Discovery
Windows had this wierd program called Excel that I learned somethings years ago during an IT course that I did. And I remebered about him and started learning it again.
And now I was able to not just plan those last days of my private pilot course, I could also plan an entire month, year… then I thought “WOW, THAT’S IMPRESSIVE”. So, Excel became my beloved one, he solves everything for me and helped with everything.
Graduation Days
Then I started my graduation in 2013: Civil Aviation. And again, Excel helped me A LOT. During the course I had contact with many fields in aviation that I didn’t know at the time, economics, SMS (Safety Management System) and I started learning more myself about it.
SMS and economics there was a bunch of data to analyse, in the SMS there was the incidents and accidents and its contributing factors and economics there were the spreadsheets with totals, averages…
At the end of course I had to choose my completion of course work. I started with SMS, it didn’t go as planned because no one would give me data about incidents and accidents in flight schools. And I followed the economics ways.
At the end of this work, I received many compliments about the work I did. So, maybe I’m a good analyst… Who knows?
The course ended in dec/2015.
Financial Markets
Brazil went backrupt in 2015 and 2016 the inflation rate was above 10% and the unemployment was 14% and the aeronautical industry was in pieces, I had any chance and I really had to work to pay for my studies.
In 2016 I started working with Financial Markets, day trading in NYSE. And my trading skills still overestimated by myselft. But at the time, not me alone, but my cowokers realized about my analytics skills, it was never my intention to became a Data Analyst, but I did.
I started gathering data from market and analyse it, searching for patterns. And boom… I find the first, that I still remember 5 years later. It was lucrative during a short period of time.
And the demand for more strategies start to grow as others strategies became obsolete, and we were just wasting money.
2019
Excel helped all the way, but my beloved tool was becoming absolete with my strategies. I started researching about other tools, and, at the time I heard for the first time about this “Python” programming language. Cool, but I didn’t want to learn a programming language just to analyse data (dumb!).
2020
Before the pandemic started, I realized that Python should be my main goal. I started buying some courses in internet and I really started liking it, not just because I needed it, but I was loving it as I loved Excel in my early days.
So, I decided to take it more seriously and enrolled in a IT school, that I still nowadays (oct/2021). As everyone else, during the pandemic I had some problems and halted the courses, but by nov/2020 I was able to get on tracks again.
2021 — Nowadays
During the Data Science courses, I learned Programming Logics, Python Language, Statistics, Mathematics… and I was getting tired of all those theory and this endless pre requirements to Data Science, but I kept on the road… with the eyes in the goal.
And I finally started the Data Science Intro Course… and boom… my mind was blown away. THAT’S IT!
I started reading more about everything related to Data Science, then came to my knowledge some new words like, Data Engineer, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks, and some brand new areas that I didn’t know so far.
And I decided to go on with Data Science, Python was the main goal and I learned Pandas, and it was achieved, that should be enough. But I checked the list of courses in the Data Science branch, and there was a lot of courses about Machine Learning.
And then I decided… I will dive in!
Now I’m learning Machine Learning, and reading more and more about Data Science area.
10 years ago I had a simple math problem diving X/42.
7 years ago I had to analyse a bunch financial data from airline companies.
2 years ago I thought that learning a programming language was too much
1 year ago I felt in love with Python and Pandas.
I don’t know what will happen in the next 1, 2, 7 or 10 years ahead, but now, I know my way.
This weekend I started the course of Computer Vision, and again… I felt the same when I started using Excel and Python. Maybe it will be my future, specialize in Computer Vision.
“The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create.” — Leonard I. Sweet
And for those who are curious about my Pilot carrer: I checked my Private Pilot license in 17/jul/2014, and it is actually halted since then, I no longer want to be an airline pilot, but I still loving aviation. And as everyone else, I have some other personal issues, like, next year I will leave Brazil permanently, so, aviation will be halted with any idea when I resume my flights, but I will.
Thank-you, Igor Comune.
