Introduction
I’ve always been an inquisitive person. There was a time around mid 2019, I was going through LinkedIn feed and I came across Eyitayo of Utiva post asking people to comment under his post their area of interest for an internship placement stating why they should be considered. I went through the comment and saw a lot of people asking to be an intern as a Data Analyst. I was curious, what could be Data Analysis?
The Adventure
I went straight to google browsed and read about it. The fact that it’s a skill that will be relevant for years gave me the nudge that I’m making research about something worthwhile. While reading another blog post, there is another skill known as Data science and written to be related to data analysis. While reading up on Data science, examples like self-driving car was mentioned which blown my mind and then mentioning that it’s being used to make business decisions, the solution driven spirit in me tapped into that as well, all these made me all ready to venture into it.
I reached out to a friend to ask him what he knows about Data Analysis. He is a Digital Marketer so I thought he should have an idea. He actually told me not to venture into it as it would take years before I can grasp the whole skill. My curiousity remained there but there was no right person to ask. It died down for a while. After sometime, I decided to ask on my Whatsapp status. So, I posted that whoever have an idea about data analysis/data science should kindly send a dm. An ex-roomie messaged and shared her friend’s number.
I talked to the friend and he made me realized he is into data analysis currently and would soon start data science. I asked him what data science is all about. I asked him what he knew about it. He asked me to tell him what I knew about it already. He only butressed the few points I gathered on google already so the big question; “How do I start?” was still there lingering in my mind.
So, I literally forgot about it and continued my volunteering activities which I recently started exploring as well outside my boring course in school.
How It Started
Fast forward to 2020, the whole pandemic surfaced by March and as an undergraduate, I had to come back home. The fact that I have an online job as a writer didn’t make me really bother about what next to do. I was only depending on the job and hoping we resume soon.
Like two weeks into May, I came across a LinkedIn post which was data analytics related by an ex-Director at a company I volunteered . I felt so elated that I’ve found the right person. I messaged him on Whatsapp to recommend courses I need to get started and a community that can support my growth. I got into Data Science Ife community through him.
On the community group page, there is a man that would always ask people to message him on how to get started if they are newbies. I took advantage of the oppourtunity and sent him a message. He told me I am to learn python, sql and he shared an Udacity free schorlarship on Machine Learning. I knew nothing about ML then so I had to neglect the schorlarship. He advised I focus on python first, so I took the python 3 course on Solo learn. I later took another python course on cognitiveclass.ai and then Python with Data science course on Solo learn. That was how everything started and it has been nothing short of amazing getting to participate in 2020 Data science pre bootcamp and bootcamp competition. I didn’t get qualified for the bootcamp because I couldn’t submit my code script due to power failure but the knowledge gotten was worth it.
I got to know She Code Africa along the line and got accepted as a mentee for Cohort 3. You can read about my final project here .
I also got into Frontend Web development with Side Hustle 1.0 Internship which ran for 10 weeks. I learnt Html, CSS and Javascript through the internship and got the oppourtunity to work on time-bound projects with a team during the bootcamp phase of the internship. Check out the web pages I worked on with my team here:
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Conclusion
I hope this post made someone realize that inquisitevess never kills. Just like my curiousity led me to this amazing journey I'm currently on. Don’t be scared, reach out to the right sources and persons and get started. You got this!