Over the past three years, I took 3 large multi-month courses and an even shorter bundle of courses. I spent more than 300 000 ₽ on them and did not achieve my goals. It seems that I have filled enough cones to draw conclusions and in the last of the courses to do everything right. Well, at the same time write a note about this.
Here is a list of courses ( I note that they are all wonderful; the final results correspond to the efforts I made ):
- 2017— annual offline course “Digital Product Design” at the HSE School of Design. The goal is to become a designer. Outcome - I skipped the last quarter completely, I didn’t. Zero interviews, zero offers.
- 2018 - I studied for 7 months at the School of Managers of the Gorbunov Bureau. The goal is to become a manager in a design team. Bottom line - I could not find a team for the training project (because I didn’t even try), as a result I was expelled due to poor performance. One interview, zero offers.
- 2019 - Data Analyst course at Yandex.Practicum. The goal is to find a job as an analyst and “enter IT”. An intermediate result three weeks before the end of the course is two personal projects on the topic, additional materials have been read and categorized. He made three approaches to the resume, sent one and a half dozen responses to vacancies, received 5 answers, passed two interviews. While there are also zero offers.
He collected methods and principles that I thought of during the training. I divided it into conditional categories: for all times, before training, during study and after (job search).
Meta-skills - those that are useful anyway
Time planning and mode - when to engage in training. "Time slots" - fixed time intervals for classes; for example, two hours in the morning before work. I have a daily routine and there is a so-called “Strong hours” is the time when my pot cooks and I can do complex things.
Understanding the purpose of learning. If "just like that for yourself" - then this is at best a hobby, and at worst - one of the forms of procrastination. And if the task is to change the profession, then it is better to designate it in advance.
I often enrolled in 5 courses at Coursera in an impulse and then passed zero of them. The next time I visited the site six months later, but only to sign up for 10 courses again.
Oleg Yuriev, my colleague at the Workshop course, adds: “You also need the strength to refuse to take a course that you have become uninteresting, I spent tens of hours doing this business, only because of my perfectionism, I supposedly started and then finished need . " Do not let irreparable loss drown you.
Start on Monday . It sounds corny, but putting off the weekly sprint task until Friday is a bad idea. Even starting on Monday, I often managed to finish work just before the deadline. (See the “ no back to back ” principle)
Search in Google . Questions like “how to change the color on the graph” or “what argument is responsible for something in the function”. Here, by the way, knowledge of English is useful - there are more answers and a higher chance of quickly finding the right one.
Blind seal . Most of the time you will have to write something: if you do it at least 10% faster, you can have time to watch an extra series ;-) A simulator for working 10-15 minutes a day.
Shortcuts for working with text. Often you have to run your cursor over a sheet of text or code. Keyboard shortcuts help you select whole words or lines, move between words. An article on Lifehacker.
Make notes . The principle of the pyramid of assimilation of material: read → write → discuss → taught another. Without abstracts, it turned out like this: at the beginning of the material “this is how the function is called, these are the parameters, this is the syntax”, then a lot of information. When it came to practice, I opened the code editor ... and went to re-read the theory.
Pre-training (six months to a year before the start)
English is an essential skill. All advanced knowledge in English. Non-progressive - also in English, at least part of it is translated. And all the documentation for the programs is also in English. Not to mention cool lectures and podcasts.
Learning how to Learn course by Barbara Oakley on Coursera or her book, Think Like a Mathematician (Mind for Numbers). Or at least a synopsis . Helps to understand basic things about how the brain works in training. Plus they give good practical advice based on this data.
Financial pillow. 6 monthly salaries (more is better) on the account are very useful when you have to gain the first experience in a new profession in junior positions for 50 thousand a month. ( A series of pillow notes in the Tinkoff Magazine — or the Podlodka podcast financial literacy issue)
Recommendations for the course "Data Analyst" Yandex.Practicum
This is my last course, and so far the most successful from the point of view of my activity, so my impressions are the latest.
Before the start of training
Preliminary to take basic courses - it will greatly help during the study to think about the task, and not about the tool.
If the purpose of training is to change work, then the cheat code will help - reduce the load on the main work, so that more time is devoted to training. Not only the training itself, but also the study of additional materials, viewing lectures, doing personal projects on the profile, walking through meetings and interviews.
“ ... I would switch to a current part-time job in order to free up time for training and a pet project ” - from the advice of Ivan Zamesin on how to get a new profession
During training
Read docks for libraries . Every time I sat down to write code, I had to look at something in the documentation. Therefore, the main pages were bookmarked: Pandas (dataframes, series), datetime.
Do not copy code from theory . To the maximum, write all functions with your hands. This will help them remember and understand the syntax of the language. Then come in handy.
You cannot read all the docks - you cannot learn a language from a dictionary. To learn useful programming tricks, it helps to look at someone else's code. And it’s better to try to repeat it and see the intermediate results in each line - so you can understand what is happening there and it’s better to remember.
Read the additional literature that is given at the end of each lesson. This helps to better understand the essence and will certainly come in handy in future topics (and in interviews!). It helps a lot to repeat the code from the articles with your hands (if any), even if it seems that everything is simple there.
Do your projects . It helps to consolidate theoretical knowledge and deal with material in real conditions - when there is no clear task and an example from the theory that can be written off; you have to think through each step yourself. It also shows the seriousness of intent and works for the future portfolio.
When I took my first Python course, I came up with a project and sparsed Ilya Birman’s blog: it helped me get used to the syntax of the language and understand how BeautifulSoup library works and what can be done with pandas dataframes. And when in the Workshop we then passed a visualization lesson, I was able to make a report with visualization .
Subscribe to specialized blogs, companies, channels in the Telegram and YouTube, podcasts. You can watch not only the latest materials, but also look through the archive in search of familiar words or simply by the most popular.
Choose a mode and stick to it.
Take breaks during the day - the Pomodoro technique helps here. Do not go over one task for three days - it is better to go for a walk, breathe air and the solution will come by itself. If not, ask colleagues or a mentor.
Take breaks for a week. The brain needs time to assimilate the received material, reboots help in this - completely disconnect from the drunken absorption of new information for a day or two. For example, on the weekend. Training is a marathon, it is important to calculate strength so as not to die halfway.
To sleep ! A healthy and adequate sleep is the foundation of a well-functioning brain.
Jim Collins analyzed the successes of prominent people and deduced a simple principle - “twenty-mile march”:
The twenty-mile march implies the achievement of certain guidelines for a certain period of time - with the greatest tenacity and constancy, over a long period. Compliance with these principles is not easy for two reasons: it is difficult to fulfill voluntary commitments in difficult times, and it is even more difficult to keep pace when all circumstances favor accelerated progress .
Interactions with teachers, curators and fellow students
When a question arose about the material covered, then fumble curators, mentors, dean's office. A teacher is the same knowledge transfer tool as pages with a theory or a simulator with code.
Usually it’s hard to remember for a consultation that it was difficult during the course, so I recommend writing down the questions as soon as they appear. Well, in general, it’s useful to go to consultations.
Faster to send the result for verification - so you can manage to spend more iterations to improve it.
“ Trying to realize any of your micro goals in each project. For example, abandon loops, then use list comprehension, then methods chaining to feel your progress. If you want to do more than what is required in the project, you need to do it, but in a separate laptop, you can insert the link into the main work or send it to the mentor to find out what he thinks about this. "- adds fellow student Oleg Yuryev
Work from easy to hard. To write a complex function or multi-stage data processing, it is better to start with something simple and gradually complicate it.
The main thing is the people around: fellow students, curators, mentors, employees of the Workshop. If you all ended up in the same place, there’s a great chance that you have a similar path and shared values. They also value education and strive to develop. And in six months they will be your colleagues in a new specialty. It's hard for everyone to communicate (especially at first), but overcoming this barrier is worth it.
Job search
If the goal of the training is to change jobs, then you should start early. The process takes an average of several months. To find work by the end of the course, you need to start in the middle. And if you already have some relevant experience, then you can start at the beginning.
Watch open vacancies to understand what the market needs: what kind of people are looking for, what are the requirements for skills, what is the stack of tools. And how much they are willing to pay!
To respond, to do test and pass interviews - after each next worldview will be a bit changed. It also helps to understand what material is lacking in training. For example, in many job openings, they ask SQL and test their knowledge, and in the Workshop they gave it not so much, unlike Python.
Write to people for advice (or just thanks). Conference lecturers, blog and podcast authors, just cool guys you follow.
Attend thematic offline events to ask your questions live. Remember that lectures from events can also be viewed on Youtube, and the events themselves come for communication and networking.
I will be glad to receive any feedback and especially advice on how a novice analyst develop in a new profession.
Thanks to Oleg Yuriev and Daria Grishko for their support, advice and their life experience .