Any older people here who are getting into this for first time?

Question

I am probably one of the older ones here. I am 42, don't have much professional experience in programming or development other than some SQL on access and oracle databases. I took an 8 week course in data science that seemed no better than all the free and low cost options around but I don't feel ready at all with R programming or SQL

Answer 1

Been here?
www.datacamp.com

No worries, I am 38 and was in quite a similar situation a year ago. I took a 6-month data science bootcamp and while I judge it quite good, the most important lesson I learnt was how much there is still to learn for me :/

Fortunately, there's coursera.org and datacamp.com for all Python- and R-oriented data scientists... ;)

Answer 2

Can't really share any R-related tips, as I am exclusively following "da path o'da snek" 🐍
However, you could try completing a mini-project to get you going and motivated. Myself, I have a similar impression that the matter is so vast and broad that you can easily lose focus. This is why sooner or later you have to specialize.
I went for machine learning and neural networks in image recognition as an introductory step to computer vision and video processing. But there are many other interesting areas: natural language processing (for example sentiment analysis), sound processing (including speech recognition), autonomous navigation for robotics, automotive, etc. and many other fields.
Just pick your preference and try completing a small achievement which you can learn through. Mine was an image classifier and it was sooooo good to finally making it work ;)

Answer 3

Thanks for your reply to my original post. My problem is i go in too many directions and i am easily distracted. The course i took was only 8 weeks and I got lost and overwhelmed and didn't fully complete it. The course involved R programming, SQL, Tableau and machine learning and statistics all in 8 weeks

I found myself going to YouTube, udemy and sites like this because i was lost in the course

Answer 4

@kuba thank you so much for your advice. I wish you good luck as well