#data science student

[acadunicorn]

Doing a post-grad in a different faculty to what you did your undergrad in is very interesting. I was a civil engineering student for 4 years. Now I am an inter-disciplinary student in computer science, statistics and commerce.

I have been getting these niggling feelings of discomfort whenever I am learning something new. I had gotten so used to having some sort of idea of what I was doing in undergrad and now everything is new. The trick is to acknowledge those feelings of discomfort and still push through.

At some point everything makes sense and I find myself being able to explain what used to be alien concepts to my classmates. Just last week I was able to help civil engineering students understand some of the calculations they were doing based on the knowledge I had gained this year in my new program.

Despite everything being alien and feeling so vulnerable in terms of my abilities, I am still so excited to be part of my program. I constantly remind myself that it’s a privilege to be here and I have a right to be in this space, at this time.

[acadunicorn]

I am absolutely dependent on group study sessions during my low productivity phases. That is why I am so grateful that I stay in one of the university’s residence halls.

I can always schedule a study session with other students in the vicinity. This forces me to actually prepare and show up. We police each other’s phone activities and are able to check whether we know a concept by explaining it to each other, bae in mind we are all doing different programs in various faculties

I actually enjoy learning about law case studies whilst also explaining bond options to students who are doing mechatronics and robotics. The snack of choice is usually popcorn or Oreos washed down with some good old instant coffee.

[acadunicorn]

I am one of those people who rewrite my notes at least three times. The first time is during class. The second time is a neater version of the in-class notes. the third set of notes are annotated notes from my own study sessions and examples given in the reading manual for the class.

It’s very tedious but it helps me take in the information and the pages keep lessening with each extra set so I take that to mean that I am understanding the work better in a more compact format. This makes for lighter revision notes.

The brown journal on the left is a mainstay on my study desks as it holds my study list for the day and any important events that I might forget. I find that it works much better than my phone as I tend to ignore notifications.

[acadunicorn]

If there is one thing I learnt from my undergrad in engineering, it was the importance of team work. I would not have performed the way I did had I not supplemented my individual study sessions with group study sessions.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

AFRICAN PROVERB

Today I was reminded of the meaning behind this quote. I spent today going through a supervised learning with two of my data science classmates (they also did engineering in undergrad; chemical) and I discovered a lot of things I had missed. Even though I was ahead and had more experience with R, their insight helped me learn new ways of achieving the same result.

[acadunicorn]

Our guest lecturer’s flight got delayed. This meant that my 2 hours of pre-reading the library quickly turned to an entire morning in the library. Whilst going through  Financial Markets, I reflected on how much I have had to put myself out there this year. 

I have signed up for two hackathons. At the same time, I am planning a demo day on a data science project that I did in my undergrad. I also volunteered to co-supervise one of the final year civil engineering projects. I am not an expert in any of these fields. However, I picked up in undergrad that the quickest way to learn was to pass on the knowledge that I possess. 

It’s why I share my annotated notes with my classmates. Knowing that they will see it forces me to write clearly and think through the content, as they might ask me to clarify something. It helps them a lot, especially those who work and can’t make certain classes. But it also helps me a lot. Even when I do not have the motivation to study, I still have the discipline to deliver within a team environment.

It is one of the perks of being in a small class whilst coming from an engineering background. There is no way I could have passed undergrad whilst staying in my own bubble. I saw my marks increase when I started involving others in my study process. I let them help me and also helped them. It is something I am happy to carry on in my post-grad. 

Hopefully, the lecturer arrives soon so that these (still very untidy) notes can be fleshed. I will take down another set during class. Then I will re-write an amalgamated version (for sharing with the class) for later revision.

[acadunicorn]

Finally done with Brandon Foltz videos on logistic regression.

[acadunicorn]

Slow Saturday study session focusing on logistic regression before the start of determinant analysis on Monday

[yanabhr]

I just had my graduation ceremony last Monday. I graduated in Master of Data Science. I am so happy and grateful to God, my parents, my parents' money, Nintendo Switch and my late grandparents. ☺️🎉