Engineering a Better Career
How and why I made the transition from energy to data science.
I made my decision where one makes all responsible life choices: at my friend Aubrey’s bachelorette party. As we all chatted about our lives over drinks, I joked that I’d prefer living off the land in Alaska to my current job. I could make it work, I reasoned, if I sold off most of my stuff. And then I had a realization: I could just quit. And I probably didn’t even need to sell all of my things and move to the tundra. When I woke up the next day, the decision felt right even sober ( and with coffee).
Two weeks later I left the coal mine where I’d been working as a heavy maintenance superintendent — a 24/7 job where I was responsible for maintaining 17 miles of conveyor belts between the coal mine and the power plant. Immediately, I bought some chicken flavored ramen. With no money coming in, I had to learn how to live more frugally. Two days later, I signed up for bartending school and entered the bike delivery business so I could munch on more than just the ramen. And about a month after that, I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in computers and technology. I’d been attending classes to prep for the professional engineering test, which made me realize I did not want to go back to civil engineering — my original professional background. My guilty pleasure at work had been finding projects that required coding, so I figured: why not try to make that my career? After researching programs for data science, I decided to apply to the Galvanize Data Science Immersive program — a competitive option that would not only teach me what I needed to know, but would also help me get a job in the field. I already had an engineering degree, a love of programming, and experience in data analysis — so though it seemed like a jump from coal mining, it was, in fact, a logical transition.
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