How did I Totally Changed My Career To Become a Data Scientist

Summary

The author transitioned from a childhood passion for video games and sports to becoming a scientist in physical education, and eventually discovered a new interest in Machine Learning, which led to a collaborative project in health sciences.

Abstract

The author recounts a personal journey of career transformation, beginning with a childhood aspiration to work with video games. Despite achieving entry into a prestigious university to study computer engineering, the author's enthusiasm waned, leading to a departure from the program. A return to competitive sports and a subsequent degree in physical education set the stage for the discovery of a passion for science, particularly in health sciences. The turning point came post-graduation when the author, in search of a master's project, stumbled upon an article on Machine Learning, reigniting a childhood love for technology. This led to a mentorship and a collaborative project using machine learning algorithms for diagnosing Type 2 Diabetes. The author's self-taught journey in Machine Learning and Data Science, primarily through online resources and practice, underscores the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge and the vast applicability of data science across various fields.

Opinions

The author values interdisciplinary projects, as evidenced by the mentor's encouragement to pursue a project combining machine learning with health sciences.
There is an appreciation for the wealth of free, quality educational content available online, which the author utilized extensively to learn Python and machine learning concepts.
The author believes in the synergy of diverse expertise, highlighting the complementary nature of their own knowledge in health sciences with the co-mentor's skills in data science.
There is a sense of optimism and opportunity for individuals from different backgrounds to enter the field of data science and apply it to a wide range of areas.
The author emphasizes the importance of practical application alongside theoretical learning in the process of mastering new skills, such as programming and machine learning.

How Did I Change My Career

To explain how I changed my professional career, I’ll have to tell a little about myself and my story. I was presented with my first video game at the age of 4, it was love at first sight, since then, I never stopped playing and decided that when I was older I would work with it.

Well, my childhood was resumed into practicing sports and playing games, as a teenager, my passion didn’t change, my time was divided between my hobbies and school, my life in sports was starting to become more competitive and I loved it, at high school I took my studies pretty serious intending to go to college, I wanted to be a computer engineer. After three years in high school, I managed to be approved in a public university (In Brazil, the public universities are further better than the private ones, hence, harder to be accepted).

I was happy, obviously, but my university was in another state, I knew that I’ll have to leave a lot behind, family, friends and also my life in sports. It was difficult, but I did, on the next year I was studying to be an engineer, just as I wanted since a kid. After a year on college, getting to know what a computer engineer do, my eyes were not so bright and my passion was fading, and after a year and a half, I understood that my love for games and technology was a hobby, I realized that I didn’t want to work with that, then I dropped college.

Coming back to my city, I didn’t have a clue what to do, took a little time to think and talk to my parents, by that time, I was crazy to come back to compete in sports again, then after a while, I decided to study physical education. Attended to another college, and then, the love of my life showed up to me in my first year, Science. I decided to become a scientist and to teach about it on universities, it was settled then.

Old Passions Coming Back

The year after my graduation, I was attending to a health sciences laboratory in my university, they study chronic diseases, I intended to become a Master degree student. After some time I managed to acquire a mentor, but I didn’t know what to study, my time was running out, I already passed the exams for the program and I needed a project. Someday in the lab, my mentor and I were reading some scientific articles looking for some subjects that could bring some inspiration to a future project, it was when she found an article “Height and Weight Estimation From Anthropometric Measurements Using Machine Learning Regressions”, back then, I didn’t know exactly what was machine learning, and as I read the article, my eyes were brightening again.

It was funny, my mentor didn’t have a clue what was Machine Learning either, but she saw an opportunity to make an interdisciplinary project (she loves it) and made me email the author, who lives in another state here in Brazil. I didn’t believe that he was going to answer me, but he did, and to my surprise, he replied me hours before saying that we could work on something together. I felt like the universe was throwing my past back to me.

The second email I sent, Diego replied with his cell number, to be easier to communicate. It is crazy, that guy didn’t even know me, I thought it could be some kind of prank. But, with time we talked a lot, he explained that he was working with Data Science doing a lot of projects involving Machine Learning and health sciences, saying that he could help me with algorithms and programming, but the idea of the project had to be entirely mine.

In time, me, my mentor and Diego, talked and shared a lot, he became my co-mentor, and after some time studying Machine Learning and Data Science as crazy, I came up with an idea to build a software for diagnosing Type 2 Diabetes using supervised learning algorithms of Machine Learning. I won’t enter in details of the project because it is not finished yet.

How Did I Study Machine Learning?

As I said before, I have a little notion of programming when I studied engineering, but all my knowledge was in the C language. Then, doing some researches on the internet, the most used programming languages were R and Python, I just chose one to learn (Python) and started to look a lot of free contents online, gathered a lot of info about Python and its use in Machine Learning, then I started to filter it. It is incredible the amount of knowledge we can find for free on the internet, good knowledge I mean. Watched hours of teaching videos, read some e-books, and practiced a lot, that is one of the most valuable tips that I can give, while we learn, we have to practice.

What I’ve Learned So Far?

I’ll be honest, I’m studying it about six months now, I don’t have the autonomy to put my project all by myself, I’ll still need help to finish it. But, I made one big discovery in the process, to become a Data Scientist, at the beginning at least, you don’t have to acquire all the abilities of hand-on programming complex algorithms, but when I understood what was Data Science and dive in the Machine Learning world, I was able to think on how it may be applied. My co-mentor is a very capable Data Scientist, but he could never think of his projects in health sciences alone because he lacks the specific knowledge on the subject, therefore, we complement each other and I still have a lot to learn.

I wrote this article for those who are eager to enter in Data Science’s Universe and don’t know-how. Especially those who come from a completely different area like me, you may use it in your favor, there is an immense amount of areas that the Data Science can be applied.

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