As a data science student don’t get so distracted by technical requirements that you overlook opportunities to develop an underrated critical skill. — I don’t think this is an unpopular opinion: I consider discussion boards in a data science course (or any STEM subject) to be as useful as a FIX ME comment in two-year-old archived code. As a former teaching assistant and almost-teacher, I find most exercises that force collaboration to be…

In a tough job market, tougher economy and rapidly automating world you might have asked yourself: Did I make a mistake choosing data science? — ZachOverflow is a recurring column in which I attempt to answer one frequently asked data science question thoroughly and honestly. No oversaturated topics. No listicles. No clickbait. Just my (mostly) unfiltered responses based on professional experience, technical exposure and, yes, the occasional unsubstantiated opinion.

Learn one of the most useful but intimidating SQL/data engineering skills in just a few minutes. — Materialize Your SQL Views With No Fear Before you get intimidated by a technical sounding phrase like “materializing views”, I want to assure you that this is a fancy way to express a very simple concept. Materializing a view = creating a table. Of course, this table isn’t created from nowhere. Because the source material, your view…

An international vacation suddenly falls apart and unexpectedly ends with a high-stakes border crossing. — Lumbering through the Montreal City center, my wife navigated tight 19th century streets in a vehicle better suited for a cul-de-sac or a college quad while I struggled with my task — using a compass. The iPhone’s compass app more precisely. While my compass adjusted itself to point north, I…

Create a functional Python script, deploy your build to a cloud function and schedule an automated report to your email. — Use Python And SQL To Create An Earnings Dashboard This walkthrough builds on elements of part I including connecting to the Stripe API, parsing returned data and conducting quality assurance so your numbers are correct. In part II, we’ll transform this build from static code to a dynamic deployment you can use to import your earnings every month.

Facing data science job rejection? You might be applying too much. Learn how to focus your ambitions and your search. — The Wrong Approach To Apply To Data Science Jobs That Set Me Back 3 Months Over two years ago, I quit my hourly job to take on a fast-paced, high-pressure and thankless full-time role: Job applicant. Prior to making the decision to making finding a job my full-time job, I, like you, encountered a lot of frustration in my, frankly, half-assed job search.

Track your writer/creator revenue by sourcing, ingesting and cleaning a data frame of your Partner Program earnings data. — Why You Can’t (Easily) Find Your Earnings Data In addition to living in a golden age of democratized content, creators are simultaneously living through a different renaissance: The age of dashboards. As much as writers and other creatives like to claim they “don’t read the comments” or “don’t look at stats”, they (myself included), need metrics to know…

Learn service account logic, use cases and the unavoidable business problem they solve. — Cloud Service Account 101 As nearly all of personal and professional communication is filtered through Google and Microsoft email products, a friend of mine has the misfortune of having a .yahoo domain, which many of these filters have equated with spam. So, in addition to agonizing over subject lines or spell-checking the email body…

An accelerated course using an outdated text taught by a new professor at the height of COVID. What could go wrong? — “How are you doing this?” Eric* removed his glasses to wipe his eyes, visibly exhausted from our marathon tutoring session, now entering its second hour. But the duration of his next sigh revealed that it wasn’t just the time of night that was draining him. Something was wrong. He minimized the window he used for…