Finding my intended career path
Above: My grades by Quarter. This experience happened in "Q4"
In the fall of 2016, a few weeks before the quarter started, my dad lost his job. He told me that I could return for fall quarter, and we would decide what to do afterwards. My intended major then was Informatics, due to its data science track, and I was about to take a new class, INFO 201. This class taught "R", one of the main programming languages for data analysis, and would be a great opportunity for me to explore my interests.
At the same time, I wanted to get closer to getting into my major having acquired some hard-skills, so I could start interning as soon as possible and help mitigate the costs for my parents. Being an international student, I could only be employed outside of UW if I was in my major and, even though I could have an on-campus job, I consistently failed in getting an interview. Moreover, getting an internship in my intended field, data analysis, would provide me more relevant skills and experience, which aligns well with “growth”, one of my main values.
The class had a straightforward structure, where I had weekly coding assignments and a final project at the end. Topics ranged from data wrangling, to using APIs (Application Programming Interface) and data visualization. Nevertheless, the most challenging aspect of this experience, and arguably the hardest “task” was to overcome the depression and anxiety episode I had at the same time. It was, on my views, triggered by the uncertainty of whether or not I would be able to continue at UW due to my dad losing his job and worsened by the importance I attached to this particular class. With every assignment I failed to submit on time, the less I felt I deserved to stay at UW in the first place and the less I tried to get a good grade.
Leadership Competencies Developed:
Strangely enough, INFO 201 was one of the most useful classes I have taken at UW. Despite not even earning credit for it, it taught me a lot about myself and introduced me to a whole new field. In fall 2017, after developing my skills further in the spring, with STAT 302 and PHIL 206, I got accepted to a “Global Data Analysis Team Leader” position at AIESEC - an international student organization present in 126 countries that I have been part of since 2015. On my application package I developed the same kind of “data visualization platform” that was INFO 201’s final project, but this time adapted to AIESEC’s context and data - which really impressed the “hiring manager”. After that experience, which provided me more hands-on and real-life skills with data, I was fortunate enough to get an internship doing data analysis for the marketing team of a mid-sized startup in Bellevue - in which I am working at until this date. It was definitely a road-block I had to face, but the road proved to worth it.
Positive Attitude
Until week 9 or so, I thought the reason I was completely failing this class (and all other classes I was taking) was laziness. It was easy to get to that conclusion since I spent most of my days in bed anyways. My outlook changed when, reflecting on previous experiences, I realized that I never had any problem at all waking up at 5am to be in school at 7. Not only I never had a problem with waking up early, I was always quite eager to start my days. This helped me acknowledge that, indeed, I was going through some mental health issues and made me seek for help. Moreover, it taught me to have a positive attitude towards what happens in my life and, alongside, assume positive intent from myself and others. This way I am less likely to assume I am “just being lazy”, for example.
Functioning Independently
In one last attempt, at week 10, to try saving my grades I went to talk to my INFO 201 professor about my mental health struggles. He told me that I should aspire to live a “sustainable lifestyle”, and that stuck with me. I face this “sustainability” not in terms that my life needs to be balanced at all points, but that I’ll have opens and downs regardless. With that in mind, I am more able to implement a routine that fits my workstyle and plan for the long-term with some “self care” time, while at the same time react to any changes and unexpected mental health related episodes.
Analysis
This was the first time I explore anything related to data analysis and statistics in college. Even though I could not find the discipline of delivering all the assignments on time, I really enjoyed “playing around” with data and trying to find answers through it. Skills and concepts I learned through this class built the foundation for me to take more advanced classes and build up my qualifications for data analysis.
On spring of that school year I decided to take another shot at learning R and have classroom experience to back-up my skills through STAT 302 (statistical software). I knew I could be good at it and just needed another chance. That class didn’t approach too much of the data analysis oriented topics of INFO 201, but covering the statistical side of R was a great confidence booster for me to explore more. At a class I took that same quarter, PHIL 206 (philosophy of feminism), had a very open final project. We could do anything as long as it was related to the concepts discussed in class. This way, I decided to make a “replica” of the INFO 201 final project that applied every topic covered on that class - a data visualization web-based platform that provided insights on women participation in parliaments around the world, and the impact it had in society.
Resiliency
My high school was oriented around preparing its students to take college admission tests (in Brazil the only factor on whether or not someone gets into college is a test), which made its exams famously hard in the region. I always “took it easy” and ended up getting great grades as a result. This “low efforts, high returns” approach made me, to some extent, have a certain feeling of “invincibility”. That’s one of the reason why my first assumption when I stopped submitting my assignments on time was that I was being lazy. It had to be something within my control. I couldn’t simply just have a mental health issue as, on my eyes, that couldn’t happen to me. This experience helped me realize my limits and how I behave under stress. It taught me that, even though I like having a “go with the flow” approach, I actually thrive the most when I define clear routines to keep me on track.
Self understanding
Artifacts
Self Development
By the time I took INFO 201, all my learning experiences (in terms of hard skills) have been in a classroom setting. It was a somewhat reactive mindset as I needed deadlines and was not proactive about my own professional development. After graduating, for example, I wouldn't be able to afford to only learn if I am enrolled in some sort of academic institution - learning should be a proactive and ongoing process, and this experience helped me realize this. Since I failed an introductory class in Data Analysis, my intended career path, I decided to explore the field on my own and at my own pace. This meant learning some topics on my own, registering to STAT 302, and, even currently, taking part on an online machine learning specialization provided by Coursera
Business Intelligence app which I created at my role of Global Data Analysis at AIESEC, 1 year after taking INFO 201