Why I Want To Start A Newsletter To Help Kickstart Your Data Career
The motivation for starting Level Up With Data.
I taught a few part-time boot camps at different universities (University of Miami, Arizona State University, and Denver University), and I realized there is a repeating theme among the students across different cohorts.
The course workload is sometimes too intense, with a vast amount of information to be absorbed in a relatively short period.
The curriculum is broadly relevant to the industry, and anyone with a decent computer and internet connection can apply to the course. We covered basic instruments for data wrangling, such as Excel, and then moved on to more advanced topics, such as Python, data visualization, databases, statistics, machine learning, and Big Data.
The course sums itself up in 24 weeks, approximately six months.
It is a reasonable time frame to complete a course and quickly find a job if you have been looking for an opportunity for some time. After all, few have the luxury of going without decent pay for so long.
However, with only 24 weeks, it is an informational dump to the students, who often need help with the time pressure and grasping the essence of the course.
To add even more pressure, some had never used a command-line tool before the start of the course. Some needed help figuring out where to find the directories and files they had kept within their machines. In short, there were moments when computer literacy was genuinely lacking, and it demoralized some students even to follow the course content.
As a seasoned professional for over ten years, I knew the course material wasn't the be-all and end-all. Any data engineer or analyst who is worth their salt knows that the topics taught have depths they need to reach to be relevant for an entry-level position.
The actual litmus test is whether I would hire any of them as entry-level professionals on my team. I was an ex-manager for data engineering and science for sports predictive data in CBS Sports, and currently, I'm a data analytics and engineering manager at a global brand.
I longed for a solution to solve this predicament, and I identified a couple of problems that needed addressing:
The students need more time to digest content and be able to internalize their skills as part of them.
They need coaching to identify their gaps and be able to address them.
They need a like-minded community for encouragement and persistence.
Thus, I'm keen to start a space and community for folks who want to kickstart their data careers more sustainably and organically so that they can make it part of their lives.
That's why I am starting a newsletter to drip properly prepared and curated content for anyone who wants to kickstart their data career.
It is not designed to be fast. If you need speed, a boot camp can suffice.
It is designed to be consistent, and you hold the reins of whether you should be part of a journey or not. My success would be if you didn't need my content to further your career.
My service to the community would be more than just a newsletter in its final form. Jeff Bezos's famous maxim, "Obsess our customers," is one of the team maxims I have established within my analytical and engineering teams over the years. As I create a strategy and framework to kickstart your data career, look out for additional helpful services and resources in the future.