How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup
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Re: How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup
#2inspiring!
Re: How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup
#3Curious how the author got better at communication. What are good resources or books for doing so?
Re: How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup
#4Awesome work, Eugene!
I had almost the exact same experience going from a psychology degree, to coding in SF, to heading up analytics for the Trail Blazers. Luck, self-study, and Kaggle! Really cool to hear that someone else also took the psychology to data analysis route.
Re: How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup
#5When I was doing a cyber training exercise in the military, we had an Air Force general tell us that the best technical officers they had started out with non-technical degrees. They said that officers with undergrad degrees in things like IT, Software Engineering, and Computer Science, weren't very good at thinking outside of the box because everything they did was fairly low level and had a provably correct solution. The officers with degrees like psychology and political science were better at taking in large amounts of information, and deducing a "best" answer to a problem that didn't have a "correct" answer. I noticed the same thing when I started teaching after I got out of the military; people with technical backgrounds wanted a checklist to follow, and didn't really care about the end result as long as the steps were followed. Non-technical students would look at what the result should be, and do whatever was necessary, creating their own checklist as they went along.
Re: How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup
#6One of the interesting aspects of this account is the role of online classes (Coursera and edX).
I always thought that those kinds of things are useful and should be effective but (online) anecdotes suggest they are not. Seems like there is a missing step and the author was able to find that step. (Branded company work?)
Re: How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup
#7When I was doing a cyber training exercise in the military, we had an Air Force general tell us that the best technical officers they had started out with non-technical degrees. They said that officers with undergrad degrees in things like IT, Software Engineering, and Computer Science, weren't very good at thinking outside of the box because everything they did was fairly low level and had a provably correct solutio…
That's rather interesting. I noticed a lot of friends who are much better at communicating than those who started off on a technical career with a technical degree. Not that being highly technical is a bad thing but in business, you go further as an employee and/or manager if you can grok what's better for a business. Usually that's where communication comes in.
Very cool example you have there. I'm keeping this filed on my Roam Research documents!
Re: How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup
#8When I was doing a cyber training exercise in the military, we had an Air Force general tell us that the best technical officers they had started out with non-technical degrees. They said that officers with undergrad degrees in things like IT, Software Engineering, and Computer Science, weren't very good at thinking outside of the box because everything they did was fairly low level and had a provably correct solutio…
That's rather interesting. I noticed a lot of friends who are much better at communicating than those who started off on a technical career with a technical degree. Not that being highly technical is a bad thing but in business, you go further as an employee and/or manager if you can grok what's better for a business. Usually that's where communication comes in. Very cool example you have there. I'm keeping this file…
Not the author here but I'm relaying your message to him. He's going to come online soon to reply to the comments. We're on a different timezone
Re: How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup
#9When I was doing a cyber training exercise in the military, we had an Air Force general tell us that the best technical officers they had started out with non-technical degrees. They said that officers with undergrad degrees in things like IT, Software Engineering, and Computer Science, weren't very good at thinking outside of the box because everything they did was fairly low level and had a provably correct solutio…
As a technical person, I find it interesting that so many technical people are that way.
I start to get into a motivational rut if all I'm doing is working on a list of technical things to complete. Engineering disciplines are some of the few degrees that provide you the ability to both directly solve other people's problems and have close customer contact - that was a major reason why software engineering attracted me as a career rather than just a hobby.
Re: How I Did It: From Psych Degree to VP of Data Science at Top Startup
#10When I was doing a cyber training exercise in the military, we had an Air Force general tell us that the best technical officers they had started out with non-technical degrees. They said that officers with undergrad degrees in things like IT, Software Engineering, and Computer Science, weren't very good at thinking outside of the box because everything they did was fairly low level and had a provably correct solutio…
It depends on the mindset of the developer or engineer. Some very smart people just want to code the thing according to the spec and not deviate. They don’t really care about the result because it’s not their problem the requirements are changing. They coded the thing based on spec that was given.
I’ll push back a lot and I’ve seen other much more senior technical people that will do the same. A lot of people just want to come to work, heads down coding, and then leave.