Here is why I moved from Rocket Science 🚀 to Data Science 🤖

Since I was eight I dreamt of becoming a rocket scientist a.k.a aerospace engineer. So why did I become a data scientist instead right after I finished my aero engineering degree? Let's talk about it.

Act 1

In 2013, I got accepted into the aerospace engineering program at the University of Sydney and honestly, it was a dream come true. My eight-year-old self would have been really proud of me. The first two years of my engineering degree was mostly generic engineering subjects with lots of other engineering disciplines and they were pretty great.

During those two years, I made a lot of friends and really started to feel like I was getting the hang of this engineering thing.

Act 2

The third and fourth year is where things took a turn for the worst. This is when I did the aerospace-specific subjects like aerodynamics, aerospace design, space engineering, aerospace structures, and flight mechanics. And if these sound very hard to you then you'd probably be right.

I was flat out for the whole two years. I was constantly burnt out from the lack of sleep and I definitely lost count as to the number of all-nighters I pulled. There were a few high points thought which is why I kept going with it. I really enjoyed the subject matter and I got to do lots of cool things. For example I got to intern at the German Space Agency, got to work with a NASA astronaut, work on a satellite that ended up in space and design a new type of space engine.

Act 3

So I can't really complain too much but those events in the last two years is definitely something that got me to question where I wanted my career to go. As I got more experience in the aerospace world through these internships and research projects, I really started to feel that aerospace was a bit restrictive for me. I'd always had an interest in the tech industry and the aerospace industry just didn't seem as dynamic or innovative. I also felt an itch
to work on problems across multiple industries rather than just in aerospace engineering. I mean my love for space was still there but I definitely
wanted to work on other things.

The more I worked on satellites the more I realised how crucial software was at the center of it all. And software skills are definitely not something I had done in my aerospace engineering degree. Along with these different epiphanies I was having in my last two years I came across a documentary called The Human Face of Big Data in my third year of university and this was my introduction to the world of data science.

One of the stories that captivated me from the documentary was the story of these data scientists that helped out with rescue efforts in high tea during the 2010 earthquake. So basically there were this group of data scientists that were working out of a living room in Boston so they started noticing on Twitter that a lot of the earthquake survivors in Haiti were tweeting the location of wreckages.

So they had the idea of mining and downloading those tweets and building a geographical heat map so that emergency services could figure out where majority of the tweets are coming from therefore better focus their rescue efforts. At that point my mind was completely blown and this proved to me the power of data science I was completely enthralled.

I truly felt like I had found a second passion. So really what sealed the deal for me at the end was the startup competition that i entered with some of my friends in the final year of my university. So we ended up building this collaboration platform for students and somehow we managed to win the best social innovation prize. While we didn't really continue with the startup it really gave me a sneak peek as to what the startup world would be like it and it definitely seemed a lot more dynamic and fun than corporate aerospace companies.

Final Act

So after I graduated I was lucky enough to find a graduate position as a data analyst data scientist that's really where I learned the foundations of data science and data engineering. If you want to hear more about that experience then be sure to leave a comment below. In summary, really there were three primary reasons for my switch to data science. The first was to diversify my skill sets. The second was to work in a more dynamic industry and finally it was to work on problems across multiple industries. So I've been in the data science industry for about four and a half years now and I can honestly say there's so much to learn and it's definitely been a rewarding career so far.