Six Going On Ten Years Of Experience

I have 6 years of experience. Doesn’t seem that long in terms of tenure to some but to me it’s been a lot longer.

Upon landing my first job as a Research Analyst, I was still grading papers at the University where I was pursuing my masters. Why might you ask? At the time, the obvious answer was – more money! I had a baby on the way and I wasn’t earning a lot at the time so I wanted to try to increase that. However, while juggling multiple gigs, something dawned on me – you see, while working as a RA, I was keeping my statistics knowledge sharp since I was grading statistics papers. I was able to look at classification models at my 9-5 with sharpened statistical eyes since I’d been grading papers on them at least once a week.

Ever since then, I’ve always tried to find side gigs (usually lecturing or mentoring) that allows me to keep my knowledge of math and stats sharp – yes there is an additional pay (not always a lot) but it lets me always have the deeper connection with math/stats and my career. I’ve found a strong positive linear relationship between them. Actually in recent years, I've found it to be less about the money and more about the skills developed.

You might be wondering what does the math work out to?

I typically work about 40 hours per week on my main job (sometime a bit more depending on projects), then about 15 hours lecturing/mentoring/grading papers/creating assignments. That’s about 55 hours during a 5-day work week. On weekends I usually devote about 10 hours to reading or working on my blog which is directly related to what I do as a well (again could be more on how life pans out right). That takes me to about 65 hours per week.

That’s 62.5% more time I’ve invested over the past 6 years -> Effectively I’ve managed to build up close to 10 years’ worth of experience by doing this.

Plus, I was able to develop a great deal of other skills such as leadership, presentation, public speaking, adaptability, empathy, servitude. Also the true satisfaction of seeing others reach their goals through mentoring and lecturing. I've also managed to create a rich network of connections and meaningful relationships.

This has exponentially increased my growth both as an employee but also as an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, friend, father and many more aspects!

So yes on paper, it looks like a short time but it’s definitely been one heck of a journey thus far!

Leave a comment and tell me what types of side gigs you've worked on? Are they directly related to what your main gig is? If you want to find out more on how I juggled all of this feel free to reach out to me