When I graduated college, there were a mix of emotions: relief (I made it), excitement (new job in a new city), and sadness (leaving behind friends).
I was open to the idea of graduate school, but unsure about what I would study and when—not to mention paying for it.
Five years removed from college and three years since finishing a code bootcamp, the academic experience was alluring.
But it didn't make sense to leave my job without a clear plan of study. Even if I had a plan, taking classes while working full-time sounded incredibly daunting.
A false dilemma ¶
After talking with my fiancée and colleagues who had taken classes, I realized: I didn't need to be a full-time student, and full-time employee. I could try one class and still fulfill my work responsibilities.
"In the United States today, nearly 14 million people - 8 percent of the total labor force . . . are both active in the labor market and formally enrolled in some form of postsecondary education" Georgetown University, Learning While Earning: The New Normal.
Cost and credit as commitment devices ¶
Online tutorials are great for quick intros to new topics because:
- They are (mostly) free
- You cannot fail
Apart from the real risks of entering tutorial hell, there are also distinct disadvantages:
- They are (mostly) free
- You cannot fail
If the tutorial is too long or you don't understand something, it's easy to drop for another tutorial. Didn't finish? No problem.
I have fallen into the tutorial trap many times, ending up with nothing but a half-finished project, or a semi-functional project I don't understand. In my next academic adventure, I wanted to push myself a little further.
Zeiss Classroom Building, Central Piedmont Community College
I ended up enrolling in Central Piedmont Community College ("CPCC") for the Spring 2020 semester. I chose CPCC for a few reasons:
- Price (a 3 credit class cost ~$228 plus fees)
- Simple registration process
- Accredited
- Online course offerings
When it came time to register for a class, I looked for a topic that I hadn't studied in college. "Intro to Data Science Programming" used R and seemed interesting. I brushed up on statistics, and downloaded R-Studio.
Teamwork ¶
Since there only six students in the section, we formed one team to work on group projects. We divided projects into sections for us to work on. Since each section depended on the prior section's completion, we occasionally ran into blocks if one person wanted to work ahead, or one section took longer than another. In hindsight, it would have been beneficial to spend more time thinking about our schedules and assigning sections by capacity.
Final ¶
Thankfully, the majority of the course grade was weighted on projects and homework. Answering multiple choice questions about R syntax and R-Studio didn't feel quite natural. Perhaps that would come with time and experience.
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