Ask HN: Quarter-life crisis

14 points by amathew 15 years ago | 10 comments

I'm 25 years old and have a master's degree in political science. During my first year of grad school, I was introduced to R, Python, and C, and began to learn programming. Since completing grad school, I've started a small business which provides data analysis and visualization consulting services to small businesses and political campaigns.I continue to program with R and Python, and hope to expand my knowledge to other languages in the near future. Ultimately, I use programming as a tool to examine large data sets. My goal is to be a data scientist, data engineer, or computational scientist. I'm just not happy with the skill set that I currently have and can't imagine teaching myself the knowledge that I need. Thus, I'm sort of having a quarter life crisis in the sense that I'm really not sure what I'm doing with my life, and don't know how to proceed.

Given my background, I'm wonder whether it would be beneficial to return to university for a second bachelors degree. That second degree would likely be computer engineering. Oviously, I'd love not to be a non-trad student or have loads of debt, but I don't really seem to have any other options at the moment.

Has anyone had a similar experiance? What would you reccoment?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

wallflower 15 years ago |

A lot of questions - don't need to answer. Maybe they can jog your thinking...

What draws you to data visualization? Is it the sorcerer's apprentice type visceral appeal of creating meaning out of seemingly entropic data? Or is it you like the data visualization aspect more than the political campaign/marketing of your business.

Reading between the lines, it seems you are comfortable (and doing fairly well) bringing data visualization to small political campaigns - do you want to expand that ambition? (e.g. in charge of real-time analytics for a large political campaign). Or do you feel like you want to tell people at cocktail parties that you are a data scientist? What would your dream job as a data scientist be? Do you want to be in a position where your job is access to huge data sets (Google, Facebook, Twitter) - for the ego and boasting of it? What do you think of OKCupid's data analysis/data visualization blog on dating - do you want to explore hypotheses and test them on large data sets? Is Edward Tufte's book(s) a coffee table book or do you flip through it when you are bored? You don't have his books? Did you want to enter the Netflix Prize contest but felt you didn't have the skills to compete?

I've met some biostatisticians. It's hard to figure out what the heck they are talking about - but they really do enjoy their job (providing quantifiable evidence of drug efficacy).

I've also met some actuaries. They get paid a lot. It's a very secure career. It's all numbers.

Some of the best visualizations are not that complex.

http://twistori.com http://twittervision.com

There is a $$ rather expensive test called the Kolbe test that you may consider investing in taking - it goes way beyond Myers Briggs to pinpoint your personal strengths and how you feel about them.

http://www.kolbe.com

bendmorris 15 years ago |

Just curious, why did you do your master's in political science? Did you want to be an analyst or something and later change your mind?

Also, when you say computational scientist, do you want to go into something specific? Computational political science? Computational biology? Theoretical computer science?

Programming is usually something that bright people can pick up on their own, with the help of online tutorials and books. It seems like you've already started. If you want to go into something that requires domain-specific knowledge, you might consider doing a second master's - depending on the subject, your school may not require a specific undergraduate degree to get in, and in my experience you learn a lot more working with an advisor one on one vs. learning in large class settings. Also, two years instead of four.

amathew 15 years ago | |

1. My plan was to complete my master's in political science and then head to law school. I wasn't necessarilly interested in being a trial lawyer, but I wanted to work as a legal researcher or legal anlyst. I just lost interest as I made my way through grad school in political science.

2. I probably should not have writter 'computational scientist.' I'm basically interested in statistical computing and visualization of large data sets.

brudgers 15 years ago | | |

>"I'm basically interested in statistical computing and visualization of large data sets."

IMO, there are two paths by which you can pursue that: experience and academia. The best experience route is to continue to grow and expand your business. The best academic route is a Phd, not another bachelor's. In an important sense, they're similar because either will probably take at least 5 years. And of course there is nothing to keep you from doing both.

Good luck.

bendmorris 15 years ago | | |

Statistics is an area where they generally take students from all fields into master's programs. The most common second master's subject among the grad students I know is statistics - in fact, half of the lab I'm in (biology) are Biology PhD/Statistics MS dual degree students, because they're interested in working with large biological datasets. You might look into that. See if you can find a stats professor that specializes in computation and large datasets.

bootload 15 years ago |

"... My goal is to be a data scientist, data engineer, or computational scientist. I'm just not happy with the skill set that I currently have and can't imagine teaching myself the knowledge that I need. ..."

complete MIT OpenCourse, "6.001 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", come back and tell us how you went ~ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...

snikolov 15 years ago | |

I would actually suggest another set of MIT courses that I think are more relevant:

Linear Algebra http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra-...

Probability and Statistics http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...

and finally

Machine Learning http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.867/

michaelelliot 15 years ago |

More so than any other subject, programming is probably the easiest to learn using the Internet. There's a wealth of knowledge out there about many different languages, including tutorials to easily explain it.

That's how I taught myself most of my programming related knowledge.

Good luck.

raquo 15 years ago |

If you use programming as a means to an end, dont't forget that you can hire/outsource/partner with those who have the skills you need. I mean, if you want to build a business rather than be an employee, you don't necessarily need the skills yourself.

Zakuzaa 15 years ago |

Career dilemma != Quarter-life crisis