Wondering why I am doing this, so am I. I guess you could say it started after I failed the RHCE exam. I struggled with the exam, mostly because my programming skills were nonexistent. As i started brushing up on coding, and learning it rather than popping a query into ChatGpt, I started thinking this stuff was pretty cool. I started using Python for more stuff at work and started working more and more with what our software developers were working with, APIs, data base queries, etc and found it kind of fun.
I admit, I have never been a programmer. When I have written code in the past, it was almost always stealing something that someone else wrote and customizing it to meet my needs. Thankfully I have always had jobs that paid me to get work done, rather than write code. Fast forward to starting to play with Python more and more, and I really started having fun. I originally took programming classes in the late 1980’s with Pascal, the late 1990’s and early 2000’s I took COBOL and C programming classes and joke that I have been scarred since then. Still hate trying to determine if I need to call a C variable via a pointer or by reference.
I signed up for Harvard’s CS50 Introduction to Programming with Python taught by Dr. David Malon and had a blast. He presented Python in a clear, concise way that made sense to me. The lectures were solid and reinforcement was available with a series of programming exercises after each lesson. As I worked through the class, and explored what Python could do, I really got fascinated with the applications of Python in cases of IOT devices, data science, and artificial intelligence.
One of the items on my bucket list has always been to earn a PhD. Since I am not getting any younger, I decided it was time, and perhaps I should should start preparing for it. Now since it has been MANY years since I was a student, and since I never had a classical computer science education, I decided perhaps getting a masters degree in data science was a great stepping stone. I figured it would get me back into the school mind set, I would sharpen my programming skills, and learn data analytics which I definitely will use working on a PhD.
I found a great program at Eastern University. It is a curriculum that after only taking a couple of classes is top notch. The lessons are delivered asynchronously, so it fits in my schedule. The faculty and graduate assistants are incredibly responsive. The curriculum uses key software that I read the rest of the data science world is using, mainly Python, R, and Sql languages.
As I was getting excited about this, I noticed the University of Maryland Eastern Shore has a new PhD program in Applied Computer Science. I was fortunate enough to meet with the department chair to get some basic information and see if he recommended me needing any background coursework (been a long time since this guy took any math and honestly, once they started throwing the Greek alphabet into math, i struggled.) The meeting went well and he suggested I apply for the fall, which I did, and was accepted to work on my PhD.
Unfortunately, shortly thereafter I was laid off from my position at Skyline, so I am not sure if I will be starting my PhD in the fall, or will work on some of the data science coursework in hopes of getting into data science since devops seems to be a fairly unstable position lately.
Needing to brush up on my communication skills was the catalyst to start this blog, I definitely need to improve both my written and verbal communication skills. I have also done quite a bit of research into the process of learning since it has been a while and both the Feynman and Zettlekasken study techniques both use writing as a learning tool for complex subjects. I will write more about those later.