Since I will be done with school next year, I decided to participate in the Summer of Data Science(aka SoDS, which lasts from May 28-Sept 3) as a way to get things into gear to get a gig. I like to refer to this as Project GIG(get in gear). Week 2 of the Summer of Data Science is supposed to be dedicated to goal-setting, but it’s approaching the end of Week 3 so I guess I should get on to actually putting those goals in writing :). One thing mentioned in the blog post about goal-setting is using the SMART(Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time-Bound) approach in doing so. Since I have a public health background, this resonated with me given the SMART approach is used for making objectives in health interventions. Using the SMART approach and realistically looking at my summer schedule which consists of juggling a day job, some paid side gigs, research, and other committments, here are my goals for the Summer of Data Science 2018!
Currently, I am at 14%. I wanted to set a goal of completing all of it, but given the other things I am having to learn such as Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop, I don’t see that happening. I would like to finish the whole track by the end of the year so I can move on to a Coursera course on Machine Learning or the Udacity Data Science nanodegree(hoping they will do another round of scholarships). I’m just going to give myself a deadline of September 3rd to get this done.
I got this idea from Emi Tanaka and thought it would be a good idea to have one so I can showcase my work to prospective employers. I have started on it but haven’t uploaded it on any site. I will at least try to do this by August 13 is when school starts.
I’m not going to lie. I thought I would be more productive this month, but recovering from a trip to Mexico, getting ready for a martial arts tournament, having a slew of meetings to go to, and family visitng put a wrench in all of that. I don’t regret any of it (minus getting sick in Mexico) but I need…to…GET MY WORK DONE. So I’m going to get my data cleaned, organized, and analyzed for manuscript #1 of my dissertation by the end of July. The data I am looking at VA hospital reviews from a variety of data sources such as the VA, Hospital Compare, Facebook, and Google reviews and seeing if there is any correlation between them. Once I get that done, I can move on to…
After getting my data nice and organized, it’s time to type stuff up. I’m going to give myself the deadline of September 3rd for that one.
As tempted as it is to include this actual blog post in the count, I won’t do that ;). There are two things I want to write about…such as the differences between the twitteR and rtweet package (my bad on not doing that earlier) and my experience at the ESRI User Conference(which haven’t happened yet!). I just need to think of a third topic…hmmmmmmm. I’m sure something will come to mind. I definitely need to flex my blogging muscles more. I will give myself the deadline of the end of August for this. Hopefully SoDS will give me the impetus to blog more often. It’s kind of like getting into the habit of adding regular exercise to your daily routine. When I committed to x amount of days in the gym a week or x amount of days taking a light jog or walk and built on to that, then it started to become a habit that stuck!
I thought my summer will be a relatively boring and laidback one, but it ended up being the opposite. Which is cool and all, but as I said before, I’ve slipped up on some things and I need to get some things in control so the rest of the summer can be productive so I can get closer to that finish line. Participating in the Summer of Data Science will give me the opportunity to work SMARTer and not harder…well hopefully not :).