Ready, Set, Data!

Hello!

My name is Edel (Eddie) Prado. I am currently on a journey to becoming an effective data scientist at Flatiron School! Flatiron is a bootcamp where they jam all the knowledge you need to be successful in the career path you choose. In my case, data science. So far in my journey, it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions and time management. The curriculum is fast paced and incredibly hands on which is a plus for me since I’m always up for a challenge of sorts. What led me to pursue data science? What do I hope to achieve? Exactly who is Eddie? These questions are stories in themselves.

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Chasing After Data

To understand my reasoning behind the decision to pursue data science, I will take a bit of time to explain my background. I was an Operations and Quality Analyst at a steel service center for about four years. The title itself, in my opinion, did not represent my responsibilities within the company very well. My responsibilities included handling production part approval processes (PPAPs), internal audits, safety audits, layered processing audits (LPAs), and the like. It was a good workload, but I always felt the need to do more. Because of this feeling, I started to track different kinds of information that was readily available to me. This included safety incidents, machine downtime/repairs, and customer satisfaction. After teaching myself a bit of VBA coding, I ended up with a ton of data, but I didn't know what to do with it. I started researching ways to help simplify and easily order the information. That's when I first found the term data science and the sampling of the tools data scientist use to turn chaotic data into ordered and informative visualizations. I was starting to enjoy myself the more I dove deeper into the inner workings of a data scientist. So much so that I started a career change to become one through Flatiron School!

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My Future in Data

What exactly am I hoping to achieve? How will I accomplish them? Those are questions I consistently ask myself and to my surprise, I do have an answer. Albeit a somewhat vague and everchanging answer but an answer nonetheless!

My top priority is to finish my 5-month bootcamp through Flatiron. Which is honestly the most based goal I have. I just finished one week of the bootcamp, and I already exhausted all my previous experience in coding on day two! So, all the lessons, labs, and quizzes are challenging for me. There are times where I can feel myself going bald from the sheer frustration of not getting code to work the way I want. But when it does! Oh boy, does that sense of accomplishment feel good. That short state of bliss is what makes me go “Okay, now how could I make this better?” This usually ends up with me losing complete track of time though.

My next goal on the list would be expanding my knowledge of different subjects. I love seeing statistics. Topics like the environment, schooling, gaming, and development are some of the things that I care most about. Me becoming data scientist will lead me to understanding these subjects by gathering data, finding correlations, and presenting my findings (after extensive cleaning and engineering) to those who care. This is what I find the most exciting about data science!

Another goal on the list would have to be playing with data in general. For context, I absolutely love computer gaming. Let’s pump the brakes for a sec. Why would I go for data science over any other gaming focused professions? Well, the games I play are massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). These include World of Warcraft (WoW), Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV), and Albion (which I just started recently). These games all have massive amount of customization and functions within them. This leads to a good chunk of data to play with called logs. The need to become the number one player in a game of millions led to many gamers to data science without even knowing. The proof would be the creation of a website called Warcraft Logs. This website takes all the combat data (usually a txt file) from a fight or raid and converts it to comprehensible visualizations. The most amazing thing is that there are even more sites that take all that data and advise you on how to improve from pressing specific abilities in a certain order to advising on what gear to equip your character with. I have loads of experience with these websites and I didn’t know that I was doing a type data science. I just wanted to be a better player for my group. After a while, I started taking interest on how to get my own charts through data, so I started to save logs in the hope that I could try my hand on cleaning, exploring, and visualizing them. With all that said, I have a goal to play with this data and come out with helpful and informative output that will make me a better player.

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The Gaming Data Fanatic Dad

I am a father of three. A son who is turning four in December and twin girls who just recently turned three. I love my kids and wife, and they are the reason to why I jumped into the opportunity to elevate my career through data science. If you couldn’t tell already, I have a passion for video games. Not particularly on the development side, but the information available to players in game and as well as out. I hope to join a company in this setting, but I will follow the data to where it leads me.

All in all, I am incredibly thankful for all the support from my family and friends, and I plan to show them the results of my journey to becoming an effective data scientist!

Keep trekking,
-Eddie P.