If you had the chance to go back in time, what would you do differently about your data science journey?

If you had the chance to go back in time, what would you do differently about your data science journey?
Photo by Clemens van Lay / Unsplash

Going back in time is a great way to understand what is it that one needs to do now to change course for the better. I love this trick that makes for great conversations and self-examination.

One thing I will change if I can go back is to spend more time in undergraduate life to pick up technology skills before going to a Masters' program.

I used to code in school, where I learned BASIC in 8th grade and then learned C++ in 11th grade. I continue coding on my own with Perl in undergrad but I could have done more with scientific computing. I should have done more Matlab/Python/R but in 2002 R and Python were not as common as Matlab.

By the time I graduated from undergrad and went to the US for my Masters, I was using R in my graduate studies in a few courses in Data Mining and Statistics. I also used Perl in my thesis work to run a web interface, connect a GAMS solver to a CGI web script and a bunch of other work.

Looking back, I would go back to my undergrad days and pick up a good book on Python development. I would then pick up a few good books on web development during my Masters or take up an online MOOC on Software Development.

While I learned all of this on the job in the last decade, I could have had a lot more fun doing what I did, had I known more concepts and tools.

I also wish I was taking a lot more notes than I actually did back then. I am a huge note taker now. I take notes in physical notebooks, online, on my phone, Evernote etc. I find taking notes a natural extension to the thinking process. And the notes I take to organize my work, those are invaluable assets I revisit from time to time.

So yeah, I'd go back and spend more time on practicing coding, reading more technical books and taking lots of notes.