{"id":8122,"date":"2018-11-02T13:36:28","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T12:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ie.edu\/exponential-learning\/blog\/?p=8122"},"modified":"2018-12-14T13:29:50","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T12:29:50","slug":"analytics-machine-learning-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/data-science\/analytics-machine-learning-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"From product and ops analytics to machine learning projects by Tania Vasilikioti"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learning here is like drinking from a firehose<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n

Hi, I\u2019m Tania and I come from the world of operations and data analytics<\/strong> for online tech. After studying economics in the US, I worked as a Project Analyst at Expedia and then as Head of Operations for a UK\/Spanish start-up \u2013 DogBuddy (which got acquired<\/a><\/u> last week, to my huge excitement!). After working on the intersection of data, tech and project management<\/strong>, I realized that I actually enjoy quite a lot the technical side of analytics<\/strong>, coding<\/strong> and helping build smart data solutions<\/strong>, which brought me to the IE Data Science Bootcamp<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s the program like? As the end of the fifth week approaches, I\u2019m feeling more and more the contrast between a) lack of time and b) the insatiable desire to learn. There are so many opportunities both in and out of class that the hardest thing is not memorizing any code or studying for exams, but choosing how to allocate your time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, there\u2019s the coursework<\/strong>: this week we started with Machine Learning in R<\/strong> with Iv\u00e1n Mart\u00edn Maseda, the Academic Director of the program. Iv\u00e1n is an amazing teacher and I\u2019m really excited to improve my understanding of various machine learning<\/strong> algorithms and their industry application. We\u2019ve also finished the SQL<\/strong> module, concluded all chapters on Inference Statistics (with a subsequent test of course!), and continued with the daily 3-hour Python grind.<\/p>\n

Then, there\u2019s the capstone project<\/strong>: my team is working with two data scientists<\/strong> from Nielsen, to deliver an end-to-end project on beverage product pairings in Spain. We\u2019ve done some solid work cleaning the massive dataset in R, and now need to tackle EDA. The final product is meant to be presented in a R Shiny App, so we need to learn about that tool as well.<\/p>\n

Next: self-study<\/strong> and my own projects<\/strong>. In any free time I have, I try to study some new topics or read on a different approach to topics we\u2019ve discussed in class. For example, I\u2019ve just finished reading the O\u2019Reilly guide <\/strong>Practical Statistics for Data Scientists<\/strong> <\/em>and I\u2019ve started with some chapters on Machine Learning with R<\/em> by Brett Lantz<\/strong>. The latter is very helpful for the project with Nielsen and to brush up on the theory of specific algorithms before we discuss them in class. I also have my own projects that I wish I had more time to work on, but that\u2019s what the weekends are for! Currently I\u2019m trying to figure out what Barcelona\u2019s most \u201ceco-friendly\u201d areas are, by looking at the location of bikeshare stations, metro stops, electric car charging spots and of course, green space.<\/p>\n

Finally, there\u2019s all the incredible data science and startup events<\/strong> that Madrid has to offer, such as the events hosted at Google Campus<\/a><\/u> by various groups. Last week I went to the Data Beers<\/a><\/u> event, where I learned about applications of \u201cfake\u201d data by Amadeus, a new methodology to quantify culture through Facebook, and how the French spend their mobile data. This week there was a talk on Artificial Neural Networks<\/a><\/u> at IE by our own professor Iv\u00e1n Mart\u00edn Maseda. Next week there\u2019s yet another event by PyLadies Madrid<\/a><\/u>, which is a great group to follow if you\u2019re a woman interested in learning Python.<\/p>\n

And the best thing \u2013 I\u2019m never really tired of this hustle and bustle<\/strong>. I\u2019m incredibly thankful that I have discovered a topic that fascinates me, a community that is interested in practical applications of data and a group of great classmates and mentors to learn from. Can we just make the day have 40 hours?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learning here is like drinking from a firehose. Hi, I\u2019m Tania and I come from the world of operations and data analytics for online tech. After [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[384],"tags":[193],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8122"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8125,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8122\/revisions\/8125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/lifelong-learning\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}