Dear friends!
Analytics projects — established elements in most big-tech blogs, rising stars at educational boot camps, and (unfortunately) neglected at most universities.
Data is growing at an exponential rate, and so are the number of people that work with data across all industries. Many of them publish the fruit of their labor as individuals or teams in articles or via GitHub and contribute to our educational community. They understand that most of us learn best when we are creating value for others. Today, I want to talk about the added value of these projects and the aspects you might want to consider when you join us!
What?
Applied Projects (AP) are based on real data and real problems that are out in the real world for real people to see, comment, and give feedback on. They go beyond the clean datasets you find in textbooks and the handheld tutorials in your classroom. Well-designed projects follow a clear objective and systematic analytical process while allowing others to gain insights into the domain along with the technical and conceptual logic of their approach.
So What?
Certification programs, traditional college classes, and guided projects you find online can take you only so far. Eventually, you must face the obstacles of the real world in all its tainted glory and complexity. Adding applied projects to your personal curriculum early on by breaking down real business problems in your industry and tackling it from your perspective is an invaluable asset that will get you ahead of the curve.
Good reasons to pursue your own project
- Learner style: Some of us are kinesthetic learners that prefer learning by doing. Instead of listening to lectures or reading articles, you enjoy to get your hands dirty and jump right into examples and experiments.
- Real-World context: The theory and models are one side of the coin, and shouldn’t be the only area you focus on. Developing domain knowledge such as the constraints, the regulatory environment, critical KPIs, and day-to-day terminology is fundamental when you start a dialog with your peers.
- Growth Mindset: The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. You will raise your horizon by taking on bold challenges beyond your work scope or classroom. You already understand that abilities and skills can be developed with time, effort, and practice. Providing, receiving, and accepting feedback is an essential part of this learning journey. Publishing your own hard work is a cornerstone for that.
- Job Market: Job recruiters evaluate potential and fit by your work. Good grades and certifications are great but not enough to stand out. Nowadays, APs are an effective and well-respected way — and not only in data engineering, but all industries — to showcase your technical and written skills, domain expertise, and your initiative and Growth Mindset! In essence, great APs can raise your market value significantly especially when you build it from scratch.
- Collaboration & Network: Joining or building project teams is an incredible next step. Problem-solving becomes easier, you start coaching each other and exchanging knowledge, gain new domain or technical insights and receive a different perspective on problems at hand (remember your personal biases!). Furthermore, your communication skills increase, you elevate the project as a whole, strengthen your professional network connections, grow your personal brand, and hopefully develop long-lasting personal relationships along the way. Sounds like a jackpot to me! Maybe there is such a thing as free lunch…
- Entrepreneurship: You might find yourself enlightened during your analysis and decide to build a product or even a whole business around it. Or you join an innovative startup that has no dataset waiting for you or a data science team that presents you the needed data in clean and convenient format. The more APs you build along your learning path, the sharper your practical experience will be. Crucial skills that will guide you through, allow you anticipate, and prioritize issues along your journey.
Misconception
A conclusion you might draw at this point might be to disregard all theory and focus all your effort on learning by doing. In my opinion, a mistake that will hurt you in the long run. In order to make the most out of your potential, you want to find yourself going through iterations of learning and creating throughout your career to find a perfect balance.
As time passes, some of the tools and technologies you learn now stay with us, while others disappear or blur when new trends appear. Theoretical concepts, on the other side, stay mostly the same. Start with the goal (the “why”), not with the means. The “how” of the process design and “what” algorithms to utilize are secondary.
What Now?
Finally, when all the hard work is done and a supportive peer has reviewed your work, it is time to release your work to the world. There are several popular platforms available that allow you to publish your work for free. After a certain point, I strongly suggest creating your own website to showcase your AP portfolio in the way think is best. From there you can improve the way you collaborate and communicate with others, even building out your own blog and training section if you would like to.
In the next article (coming soon), I will discuss what makes a AP great and what could make it fail. So bear with me!
