This year was one of many previously unimagined milestones for me – from earning my graduate degree, to becoming employed as a Data Scientist, to giving my first ever conference talk, it’s been a whirlwind and a year of lots of change for me. Although these are all great accomplishments on the surface, they were not without struggle and their fair share of challenges. In this post, I want to share both the successes and obstacles that accompanied these milestones.

I graduated.

“As we go on, we remember
All the times we had together
And as our lives change, come whatever
We will still be friends forever”

- Vitamin C, Graduation

This past May, I became Lydia Gibson, MS – the new owner of a Master’s of Science in Statistics. This is by far my proudest accomplishment of the year because from the time I started my degree program in Fall 2021, I had serious doubts about whether I would actually complete the program and graduate with my Master’s degree. As mentioned in previous posts, this wasn’t my first time attempting a master’s program, but nevertheless, I didn’t count myself out and two years later I obtained my graduate degree. I had a rocky start at the beginning of my program, just scraping by with a passing B in my Probability and Statistics Theory class, but I eventually graduated with a 3.86 GPA after acing all of my other coursework – I even received one of three annual $500 department scholarships specifically for CSU East Bay graduate students studying statistics. Despite this being my most joyous accomplishment of the year, a bittersweet side of graduating was moving for work and being physically separated from the amazing friends I made at school, but I’ve visited home a few times since moving to hang out with them in person and we also remain in contact through texts, social media and discord/zoom hangouts.

I started a new job.

“And every time I’ve tried to be
what someone else has thought of me
So caught up,
I wasn’t able to achieve”

- Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

When I returned to school, it was with the express purpose of pivoting my career out of retail customer service and public sector roles. In studying statistics, my initial thoughts were to give actuarial science a second try (I’d failed the SOA exam P back in 2012) but in my first semester at school I learned about data science and began considering breaking into tech as a career option. Fast-forward to the end of my Summer 2022 Intel Graduate Data Analytics Internship, I received a very generous 6-figure return offer to be a Technology Development Data Scientist at the Intel Ronler Acres campus, contingent on receiving my degree and relocating to Hillsboro, OR. While on the surface, I’ve hit the career lottery, I’ve endured a hostile work environment due solely to one individual who regularly questions my qualifications for this job due to the fact that I “only” have a Master’s degree and no previous statistics or data science work experience. This has been very trying and has led me to the brink of almost quitting my job twice now due to the emotional distress it has caused, but I’ve persevered and the skills and experience I’m gaining will serve me well throughout my future data science career.

I gave my first conference talk.

“Happy to see how far I’ve come
To the same place it began
My dreams and imagination
Perfectly at peace
So I move along a bit higher”

-Kid Cudi, Up Up and Away

Attending rstudio::conf(2022) last summer was the highlight of my previous year – I’m still yet to write a blogpost about it because it was too hard to put into words how grateful and honored I was to have been given that opportunity to attend such a magical event all-expenses-paid (check out my Twitter thread with selfies of the amazing folks I met there). Fast-forward to winter 2023, Posit PBC (formerly known as RStudio) announces the posit::conf(2023) CFP, and invites last year’s diversity scholars to a special info-session to help and encourage us to submit talk proposals. I knew right away what my talk would be about: the R4DS Online Learning Community, an amazing community which helped me to advance my data science skills in a warm nurturing environment, as mentioned in previous blog posts. Surprisingly, my talk proposal was accepted, and I eventually gave my talk this past September at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. It was challenging to concentrate on writing my talk given all the changes happening in my life at the time, and I was personally dissatisfied with my delivery and ill-preparation for this big milestone, but the folks in R4DS and the larger FOSS community were so supportive during and following my talk that I was eventually able to extend myself the grace to be proud of this accomplishment. Funnily enough, although my talk was about growing by allowing yourself to be a beginner, I almost let myself hide what I thought was a failure by requesting that the recording of my talk not be posted to YouTube with all the other posit::conf(2023) talk recordings. Thankfully, I received a pep talk from one of my rstats friends, Ted Laderas, during an inspiring and uplifting in-person coffee chat and decided against allowing myself to shrink. I am so grateful for everyone in the R community who’s helped me grow this past year, and I hope to continue to pay it forward as an R4DS mentor and book club facilitator, and now R4DS core team member and administrator.

Closing out the year.

“I wanna live a life like that
I wanna be just like a king
Take my picture by the pool
’Cause I’m the next big thing”

- Weezer, Beverly Hills

What’s in store for 2024? My plans aren’t solidified, but I do have some 2024 goals in mind as well as projects I’m already working on. #alwaysbelearning: I want to practice coding more and growing my knowledge of the many facets of data science. #alwaysbenetworking: I want to continue participating in the R community through leadership and community building roles, such as being part of the planning committee for the upcoming 2024 Cascadia R Conf. Lastly, and most importantly, I want to put myself first and really focus on my health and well-being before anything else.