PRELUDE
My father has said numerous times to me and I’ve passed along the same advice to my children — never take someone’s time unless it is to bring them a bit of happiness or you can leave them with a useful thought they didn’t know before.
I’ve always viewed some of the contrivances of social media with skepticism. It is not just me showing my age (more on that later) and shaking my finger at the younger generation. I remember my then 16-year-old daughter boasting of a Twitter following in excess of 20 people. Admittedly, I failed a quality parenting moment, when blurting out “Who in the hell would want to follow you?” It always struck me as a 15-minutes of fame phenomenon. Certainly, there are people and organizations worthy of ‘following’ but much of it just seems random opinions of ‘experts for a day’.
However, I can admit to finding blogs to be of a different variety. I’ve discovered unknown places to eat in my own hometown, wonderful off-the-beaten path places to visit while on vacation and a wealth of other great information. Many of these same blogs are often told in a format that evokes storytelling and is a great way to store the information in the reader. In this way, I find many blogs meet at least one if not both of my father’s criteria for taking someone’s time.
As I embark on my first ever blog, it is with a bit of trepidation I may fail my father’s advice.
Why then would I embark on this journey into the ‘blogosphere” a reader may ask? There are at least two reasons:
First, as a sort of new phase in my life, I have recently returned to an educational environment. My studies in that environment are the impetus for this blog. To be truthfully realistic, as my instructor may be one of the only individuals to read this blog, four blog posts are a requirement for completion of the program
Secondly, in the event a reader in my ‘demographic’ considering a new ‘phase’ or change in their own circumstances, stumbles on this blog, I’m hopeful they may glean some bit of information (or happiness) wholly related or unrelated to my upcoming topic.
While, quite possibly, an uncommon format, it is my desire to make this a sort of episodic adventure as I spend the next several (nine-plus) months delving into my studies. I’ll know much sooner than later if such a format will be approved, as our instructor will be reading these in the next week. Fitting then this first blog is being submitted on ‘Easter Sunday’, as it might quite literally rise again in a different format if it doesn’t meet with approval.
BACKGROUND
Forgetting my early childhood, I will start as an almost 13-year old teenager, the son of a United States Army General Officer, having just graduated the 8th grade and looking forward to Summer living in Mannheim, Germany, during the mid-1980s (and still in the Cold War). Mine was not a Summer meant to be filled with the randomness of exploration, the charade of pretending to be 17 to rent R-rated VHS tapes or the playing of D&D with pen, paper and multi-sided dice. The US Army had arranged for all rising high-schoolers to have full-time jobs at various facilities throughout the base. That Summer I had the misfortune of being assigned to a mowing crew responsible for mowing open grass fields 8 hours per day, 5 days per week. My reward? $3.25 per hour.
In hindsight, it was a great experience. I actually enjoyed working — the rigidity of the schedule and the setting of expectations. I would come to realize these were characteristic of my type in later years. We were paid a lump sum at the end of the Summer. Of course, our responsible parents realized such a large sum would be wasted. And, most of my friends and I were then taught the value of a savings account. I was actually motivated to take a paper delivery job, during the school year. Between that job, sports and schoolwork, I found I enjoyed that I didn’t have any free time to waste — another of those character discoveries.
Jumping ahead four years to the Summer of 1987, I’m back in the United States. I’m in the suburbs of Washington, DC, in a town called Fairfax, Virginia, entering George Mason University as an incoming Freshman. In an ongoing effort to follow my father’s advice, I have enrolled in the Electrical Engineering program. I had enjoyed numbers and sciences in high school so it seemed, if not a passionate pursuit, at least a logical one.
By the middle of my second year, I’m enjoying college life. I’m a member of the crew team, I’m working a late night/early morning shift loading trucks at UPS, and I’m doing well in my classes. However, I’m starting to crunch numbers on my courseload. I see all those Business majors taking 3 credit hour classes for 3 hours per week. I see myself taking multiple Lab Science classes, 4 credit hours for 6 hours per week. By the beginning of my Junior Year, I’m a Statistics/Finance major.
My college experience ends up being a 5-year plan thanks to my love of crew. But, I believe many of us look back with fondness of those times, so I have zero regret. In 1992, real life beckons.
What can I say about the “real world” that most of us don’t already know? Days turn into weeks, weeks into months and months into years. We learn quite alot about the value of our time and with whom and how we want to spend that time. Its likely telling my foray into the largest amount of time spent in my life, the “real world”, is written in less space than those early years.
My time in the real world is spent in a variety of jobs. On some level, they all involve data analysis whether it is balancing workflow and employee count, maximizing profits in the commercial rental space or trying to understand the needs from a client side based on their given inputs. I’m fortunate to have worked with and for many great people. I am also fortunate enough to have operated my own business.
On the personal side, I am fortunate to have found a wonderful partner and helped grow a supportive family of three wonderful children and multiple-through-the-years wonderful dogs (current count is also three).
It is the combination of wonderful partner and business that afford me the opportunity to ‘retire’ at what most would consider a very young age.
In the past 10 years, I have enjoyed a life spent honing my golf game. Although, my progress in golf bears strong semblance to a sine graph. I have taken up tennis and been able to maintain an overall healthy lifestyle. Additionally, I have developed a strong volunteer network in the rescue of dogs. Many would likely say it is a charmed life. But, as I turned 51, I found it a life decidedly lacking in something.
With all of the kids out of college by the Fall of 2020 and embarking on their own lives, I recounted that I would always remind them to be purposeful in life. I couldn’t seem to escape that message when reflecting on my current life. I began to consider what being purposeful might look like for me.
Through a personal analysis of things I have enjoyed in my limited free time, work I had enjoyed in the past and classes I found most interesting, I decided, with an update to my skills, I might have something to offer to an employer, a non-profit organization or the field in general in the realm of Data Science.
I’m meticulous when it comes to buying a car, house or, really, anything. My partner has often joked by the time I decide on a car the next model year has arrived. Knowing how the landscape of education has changed over the years by seeing the journey of my children, I was unsure how easily I would find a way for an older guy to enter what seemed at first a younger man’s game.
The search wasn’t as difficult as I envisioned. A friend and neighbor from DC was a Career Counselor with a bootcamp (a term with which I was unfamiliar outside of my gym) education company called Flatiron. My only knowledge of Flatiron was they had been acquired from WeWork before that parent company fell flat on its face.
With a bit of due diligence and a family discussion that ended in full support, I decided to apply for the Data Science program at Flatiron. While waiting to hear if I had been accepted, I felt that same sort of thrill from years back waiting to hear test results in high school or college, waiting to hear about securing potential employment or waiting to hear about securing a contract for my business. I rather enjoyed that feeling again.
As one might gather if you’ve made it this far, I was accepted into Flatiron. Specifically, I was accepted into the full-time Data Science program. And, boy, was it ever full-time.
NEXT EPISODE: Is this the speed of new learning or is my brain just slowing down?
