9 Things a Data Scientist (Or Anyone) Should Forgive Themselves

(And not knowing all the Gen AI trends is only one of them.)

1.??????? The useless degree you took

Yes, the world is changing and very quickly. Once upon the time you believed that philosophy, photography, or physics were your life calling (I am only accidentally ‘attacking’ majors that start with ‘ph’). They didn’t turn out to be it, but you’d be shocked at all the ways your ‘useless’ major can still come in handy. You didn’t end up where you expected, but you may still end up somewhere much better.

2.??????? Forgetting how to code because you got promoted

…And now you’re ‘only’ managing people. But, use it or lose it applies to programming as much as it does to biceps. You really thought that working hard would bring you the progress – and it did, but you never thought you’d end up doing everything but the very thing that got you here in the first place. And that’s ok, as long as you carve out your own path. Maybe coding can be your hobby (as it was when you first started).

3. The breaks that you took from life (and especially, data)

That year you spent living at home, or far, far away from home. The days and months that you wish you could wipe from your memory as times of fear and regret. But, we all get overwhelmed sometimes and we desperately need times to regroup, re-thing and reflect. These times of fear were actually times of self-care. We figured out how to bounce back harder. And in the meantime, data was still there in its beautiful, messy and unfiltered format.

4.??????? Not being a 'natural' at everything

Data scientists should be like a Swiss knife: good at stats, maths, machine learning, Python, visualisation, big data analysis, SQL, deep learning. Oh – and data storytelling. And did I hear that right – there is a new Gen AI trend every day now, you’re meant to be on top of all that. But we can’t. And it’s ok. Data science is a complex field, and it's okay to struggle with certain concepts or tools. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Find yours and be mindful of them.

5.??????? The popcorn / crisps / sweets you ate. At lunch. At your desk. While 'coding'

You will survive this.

6.??????? The disasters you didn’t see coming

Every bad hire. Every investment that didn’t work our. Every machine learning model and all the hard work you put into it that gave you accuracy of 53% (or barely 3% better than tossing the coin would). Except, we don’t live our lives in retrospect – we live them forward. And we don’t get to know if our choices will be right or wrong.

?

7.??????? Saying ‘it’s only 3 lines of code’

Bless you. It is never, ever, ever, only 3 lines of code. If you don’t know this, you will learn.

?

8.??????? Comparing yourself to others

Yes, everyone’s a special unicorn and everyone's journey is different. But, between us - comparing yourself is only human. Besides, if we’re not even aware of others’ accomplishments and growth, who would be our reference point? Having said that, your life is your own and you can do whatever you want with it.

9. Every conference, paper, project, podcast or grant you didn’t attend/write/apply for

You have to go of every alternate reality where we’re happier, more popular, more productive, less distracted and wiser because of all the things we did differently.

Letting those versions of us bloom somewhere else makes us freer where we, actually, are.

Photo: Midjourney