Day 16 - Let's start again...

Shame on me!
I had not written on the blog for days!!

Considering I am working part-time and studying on evenings, attending to meet ups and having a social life, I really need to manage my time and keep writing here. So writing it's a thinking style which is essential to my learning process at the moment.

Now, let's talk about what really matters: R programming!

I've just started a new Coursera web course (11th April) about Statistical Inference, which covers mainly Statistics subjects and how to code statistics using R. The best point is they encourage you to run the SWIRL package to practice some practical exercises. The downside is you need to pay the course fees to complete the weekly quiz. But it's okay, once you have at least the SWIRL to try and it's allowed to making some mistakes while you're learning it.

If you didn't have it install yet, first of all, you need to do it!

install.packages("swirl")

Then, to run this package, you just need to open R-Studio and write in the console:

library(swirl)

Install the Statistical Inference module:

install_from_swirl("Statistical Inference")

Run SWIRL package:

swirl()

We also had another Meet Up event yesterday and it was fantastic and very informative, as usual!

The R-Ladies group is becoming stronger and noted. I think it's a great new project and can achieve high levels of engagement and quality. Take a look: R-Ladies London.

If you still don't know R-Ladies, here's a brief overview: it's a recently created Meet Up group that unites girls over London city who want to learn more about R programming language. It's free of charge and you just need to subscribe to the events. Normally, it occurs on a monthly basis and you need to rush for book your seat!

That's all, folks.

I'll tell you more about other great ideas tomorrow.

Cya :)

Day 15 - LondonR - Mango Solutions

This week is so busy that I could not write anything for the blog every day.

Actually, I got a part-time job to save money for my 2016 plans and, to meeting new people. I mean by "meeting" is leaving home every day and talking with other folks. 

So, last Tuesday I attended to one of the LondonR events, organized by Mango Solutions, a company that offers analysis solutions, consulting, training and application development for other parties. The event was fantastic, as usual: there were many bright people, most of them is already using or learning R programming and loads of people are trying to improve processes, tools, methods, which is great! If you want to achieve further career growth, you need to spend time in networking with the "right people". It means talented, intelligent and thinking-outside-of-the-box people to acquire more knowledge and even ask for mentoring.

They also brought news regarding EARL conference in this year. The best description for the EARL is written on their website:

EARL is a Conference for users and developers of the open source R programming language. The primary focus of the Conference is the commercial usage of R across a range of industry sectors with the aim of sharing knowledge and applications of the language.

So, during the talk the most interesting subject I've heard was a company named Rosetta, which created a development platform regarding many languages that are linked (like R, Python and also Excel) and work together on the same console. It is amazing! It's like a dream because you can code in your preferred language and you don't need to translate it to another one, just grabbing all codes and to put them together, in the end, then everything operates magically.

Well, my plans are studying this weekend, so for sure I'll have more subjects to talk about soon.
That's it for today :)

See ya!

Sources:
www.mango-solutions.com
earlconf.com
www.rosettahub.com
www.diegoluiz.com

Day 14 - Hacker Rank competition results!!

No posts for the weekend! :(

But I indeed accomplished loads of tasks during these days, like completing all Hacker Rank puzzles, from the Statistics competition. In the beginning, the puzzles were easy to moderate levels, but the last ones were an almost impossible mission to accomplish. This website for competitions is excellent, once you can practice not only when the game is running, but there are also small puzzles to solve whenever you want regarding several different programming languages, like R, SQL, Python, Javascript, C++, and others.

Within the topics, the Statistics challenge covered subjects as:

• Standard Deviation
• Basic Probability
• Normal Distribution
• The Central Limit Theorem
• Correlation
• Linear Regression
• Correlation and Regression Lines
• Multiple Linear Regression
• Predictions

For people who are passionate for statistics, like me, it was a fantastic time for having some fun!
The week results were not surprising: only 10% of total attendees in competition actually completed it. And I finished in 96th in the rank! Yay! :)

Current Rank: 96

By the way, I am trying to create my study planning for three months, and it's a bit complicated to do this, mainly when you have few experience dealing with the subject you want. But I am sure I'll get it! :)
To finish this day, I would like to let this checklist within qualification skills a data analyst should have, according to NCS (National Careers Service) website:

• a high level of mathematical ability 
• good IT skills 
• the ability to analyse, model and interpret data 
• strong problem-solving skills 
• a methodical and logical approach 
• the ability to plan work and meet deadlines 
• a high level of accuracy and attention to detail 
• good interpersonal skills to work as part of a team;
• excellent written and spoken communication skills including report writing

So, these skills will be my primary focus on next three months.

Hence, I don't want to be a Data Analyst. I want to be the BEST Data Analyst!

Tomorrow I will tell you about the last Meet Up event I attended last Thursday: 

Data Science in Spacecraft Missions & Space Research, hosted by Royal Statistical Society and presented by ASI.

Have good dreams!

See ya!

Source: 

www.rss.org.uk

www.theasi.co

nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk

www.hackerrank.com