What Led me Here

For my first post, I thought I would give a little bit of background on myself, in non-tabular format.

My name is Nicolas. I am half-Colombian, half-American. I was born in Massachussetts, but within 6 months of my birth, my parents relocated to Colombia upon my Dad’s successful completion of his Ph.D.

I lived in Colombia for nine years before once again relocating, this time to exotic New Jersey. I won’t bore you with the details of my teenage years in the Garden State.

In college I chose Chemical Engineering as my major, originally intending to go to grad school for Environmental Engineering. However, feeling burnt out by the end of my Junior year, I decided that going to grad school straight from my undergraduate education was not for me. Along the way, I became interested in both materials science and mathematical modeling, but then realized that getting a job in either of these fields at the time would also require a graduate degree. So I did what any rational person would do and rode a bicycle across the United States of America for three months instead of deciding my next step.

Upon returning from my trip and doing some soul-searching, I took up a role in Product Development for a small chemical company, which after two years translated to a Product Management role in a much larger chemical company. Despite a forward moving-career in a good industry, I was unhappy. The bulk of the day-to-day tasks of my job did not line up with my strengths or passions, leading to a dissonance which eventually gave birth to full-blown depression. It was at this point that I decided to seriously look into other jobs and career paths.

Through discussions with my younger brother who happened to be going through some of the same challenges career-wise, I discovered the up-and-coming field of Data Science. It seemed like the perfect marriage of my long-forgotten passion for modeling, with my newly-discovered passion for Data Analysis. After doing some research and applying to Data Science jobs on my own, I decided to enroll in a bootcamp in order to have both a more structured learning environment, and personalized career help.

This blog chronicles my journey from this point forward.