A New Journey

I’m so happy to be at the Data Science Program at Lambda. After researching other similar opportunities in the local area, I settled on Lambda. Other places offered the same experience in a shorter amount of time, but Lambda was the only one that offered a more extended experience (9 months) without any upfront funding. I was already willing to spend around $20,000 at another place, so when I found out about Lambda’s ISA(Income Share Agreement), it sounded like a no brainer.

Lambda felt like the only place that jumped in the trenches with you. Lambda is willing to defer payment until you get a job.

That means you don’t pay a dime until you have a job that makes over $50,000/year annually once you complete the program. For the next two years of work at your new job, they will get paid noo more than $30,000 at a rate of 17% per year. Add to that the contract dissolving if you don’t get a job in a related field of your study in 4 years. I thought it was a great offer and a great business model.

Before entering Lambda, I spent around six months on and off learning the curriculum. Data Science, to me, was comprised of computer programming, statistics, and business understanding all put together. I had initially been pursuing a biochemistry degree before, so the math was familiar to me. I had used a lot of data (in excel) when I was a Maintenance Manager and always wished there was a better way of predicting how much to spend on resources next year other than a simple x, y chart. When I owned a childcare facility in Seattle, I was receiving massive amounts of data. I didn’t know how to accurately aggregate it other than what I needed for taxes and state code. When I found out about Data Science, I realized it was the answer I was looking for all those years. I knew how I wanted to manipulate data, but I didn’t know what tools to use.

Community BBQ we did at Little Hawks (Im on the right in orange)

I like to think that Lambda is providing me a smart direction to go with my data science career. I can save a lot of time sticking to practices used in industry than trying to figure it out by myself with no guidance.

Regardless if I went to Lambda or not, data science is something I would pursue for the rest of my life as a professional or a student.