A Couple Articles of Interest
Hi, there!
I’ve been so busy with projects lately (for work, class, personal), that I haven’t been able to do as many data science learning projects as I’ve wanted to, but I have been reading up, and I wanted to share some articles I recently found interesting with you!
The first is “Crushed It! Landing a data science job” by Erin Shellman, which I received via the Get a Data Science Job newsletter.
Erin talks about her recent experience with various types of Data Science interviews, which ended in her being hired at Amazon Web Services. She gives great advice about how to prepare for these interviews, as well as a ton of great resources for learning. I’ve definitely bookmarked several of her book and course recommendations.
Advice from Erin Shellman: “Take the time to be sure that you can explain core concepts in your own words. Screening questions are commonly phrased like this: “how would you explain to an engineer how to interpret a p-value?” Explain it to an engineer, someone who, presumably, isn’t a statistician and might not be used to that language. You don’t want it to be the first time you’ve had to rephrase basic definitions like that. Also, don’t underestimate what nerves can do to your ability to recall information, even stuff you really thought you understood.”
Check out her full post here: http://www.erinshellman.com/crushed-it-landing-a-data-science-job/
The second article interested me, because about a year ago when I heard about UrtheCast, I was brainstorming data-sciencey projects that could be done with satellite image data, and thought it would be so cool to learn how to identify and track large mammals like elephants and whales from space. Well, guess what? It’s already being done!
If you think you like elephants and whales now, just wait until you see them FROM SPACE http://t.co/bz6ND5wKkC
— Parker Higgins (@xor) March 28, 2015
The article Parker Higgins is referring to in the tweet above is from The Atlantic, and details how analysts at DigitalGlobe were able to identify elephants in the Democratic Republic of Congo and help protect them from poachers. A different team at DigitalGlobe used an algorithm to spot whales surfacing near the coast of Argentina from ocean imagery – how cool!
At the Girl Develop It! meetup where I talked about data science, some of the participants and I had questions about using geospatial/GIS data for various types of analysis, and decided to schedule a new meetup. My husband knows some professors that do research in this area, and there were a couple people at the meetup that also had some experience with satellite imagery, so I’m going to plan a follow-up meetup to discuss that topic in more depth. Keep an eye on this blog for any announcements about that. I’m thinking maybe late May?
I always tweet interesting articles I read, so for more, follow me on Twitter!