My Journey into Data Science

Ayodele Odubela
Towards Data Science
12 min readDec 17, 2020

Photo by Guido Coppa on Unsplash

In 2014, I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Digital Media and Communications degree. I worked in social media marketing for a travel marketing agency and ended up getting let go a week after moving to Denver (after they assured me I’d be able to work remotely).

This was the beginning of my career transition. I thought I’d only be able to get out of the field I was in by getting a degree in something else, which is not the case, but that’s what I did.

A few months into grad school a friend got me a Data Science job at a six-person startup making $19 an hour. At the time this was the most money I had made so I was fine with doing it at that rate. It started off as data entry and gradually progressed to analytics, dashboarding, and regression and forecasting near the end. After a year of stressful work and going to school full-time, I quit my job with a full year of experience under my belt. I wouldn’t suggest it, but I have worked myself to the bone and burnt out and 12/10 would not recommend. I took random jobs to pay the bills. Ever need a cracked screen fixed? I worked as a technician fixing phones at the Apple genius bar. I was able to balance part-time jobs and school, but I cut back on a LOT of my expenses. Almost a year after I left my DS burnt out and angry, I got a job at a drone for good startup and while I got “sweat equity” I was making $0…

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Published in Towards Data Science

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Written by Ayodele Odubela

Ayodele 💫 Responsible AI & AI Audits | I help techies become Responsible AI pros. ⭐100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics

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