feedback – Boris Gorelik

Another piece of career advice

Here’s another email that I got with the question about switching to the data science career

Hello, my name is X. I saw your blog, and to be honest, I said, “Wow, is this me :)” I’m a pharmacist 5th-grade student currently working on a project in computational drug design. I started programming, and I loved it. After that, I heard the term “Data Science” and started to do some research […]

Basically, I loved being on a computer and solving problems its a good career option for me (at least for now, you can’t predict future) my mom has a pharmacy I worked there (internship), and it is not for me (i am counting the time when I’m in a pharmacy.) so I have a few questions for you

I don’t have any degree in statistics or CS or something equivalent I am determined to learn these topics, but some people want to see the degree, and probably no one accept a pharmacist to a master degree in statistics (I also wish to do my Ms in computational drug design because, in the end, I don’t want to be a data scientist in social sciences or economics, at least for now, I want to use that knowledge in my field which is drugs and pharmaceuticals)

Ph.D. on Bioinformatics would help ? or Biostatistics ( is it easier for us to be accepted in biostatistics rather than statistics? To be honest, I don’t know the difference much, I took a biostatistics class, but it was just one semester and probably not enough for Ph.D. :))

Do I really need a degree in CS or statistics to be a pharmaceutical data scientist? I want to do my Ph.D. but also want to be realistic, it sounds amazing doing online masters in statistics while you are doing Computational drug design or Bİoinformatics Ph.D., but it is very hard and frustrating and also decrease your productivity in both fields.

I asked a lot of questions, sorry, but I have many :). You can reply when you have time. Thank you, and I loved your blog. I read and watched tons of things, but yours was the best suited for me because being a pharmacist, computational drug design, considering bioinformatics, it is all fits. By the way, I also considering cybersecurity (not working in a company but learning). I see that as a “martial arts of the future,” maybe I am wrong, but a person should know it to protect him/her self. Thank you again 🙂

Indeed, X’s background sounds very much like mine.
I’m not sure I have too much to add to what I already wrote here, in this blog. The only thing that I have to say is that in my biased opinion, a Ph.D. is something worth pursuing. The more time passes by, the more Ph.Ds there are, and the lack of a degree might be a problem in the future job market. On the other hand, there are many smart and rich people who claim that university degrees are a waste of time. Go figure 🙂

I hope that this helps.

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Please leave a comment to this post. It doesn’t matter what, it can be a simple Hi or an interesting link. It doesn’t matter when or where you see it. I want to see how many real people are actually reading this blog.

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Please leave a comment to this post

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Please leave a comment to this post

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Please leave a comment to this post

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Please leave a comment to this post. It doesn’t matter what. It doesn’t matter when or where you see it. I want to see how many real people are actually reading this blog.

What is the best way to collect feedback after a lecture or a presentation?

I consider teaching and presenting an integral part of my job as a data scientist. One way to become better at teaching is to collect feedback from the learners. I tried different ways of collecting feedback: passing a questionnaire, Polldaddy surveys or Google forms, or simply asking (no, begging) the learners to send me an e-mail with the feedback. Nothing really worked. The response rate was pretty low. Moreover, most of the feedback was a useless set of responses such as “it was OK”, “thank you for your time”, “really enjoyed”. You can’t translate this kind of feedback to any action.

Recently, I figured out how to collect the feedback correctly. My recipe consists of three simple ingredients.

Collecting feedback. The recipe.

working time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

Open-ended mandatory questions: 1 or 2
Post-it notes: 1 – 2 per a learner
Preventive amnesty: to taste

Procedure

Our goal is to collect constructive feedback. We want to improve and thus, are mainly interested in aspects that didn’t work well. In other words, we want the learners to provide constructive criticism. Sometimes, we may learn from things that worked well. You should decide whether you have enough time to ask for positive feedback. If your time is limited, skip it. Criticism is more valuable than praises.

Pass post-it notes to your learners.

Next, start with preventive amnesty, followed by mandatory questions, followed by another portion of preventive amnesty. This is what I say to my learners.

[Preventive amnesty] Criticising isn’t easy. We all tend to see criticism as an attack and to react accordingly. Nobody likes to be attacked, and nobody likes to attack. I know that you mean well. I know that you don’t want to attack me. However, I need to improve.

[Mandatory question] Please, write at least two things you would improve about this lecture/class. You cannot pass on this task. You are not allowed to say “everything is OK”. You will not leave this room unless you handle me a post-it with two things you liked the less about this class/lecture.

[Preventive amnesty] I promise that I know that you mean good. You are not attacking me, you are giving me a chance to improve.

That’s it.

When I teach using the Data Carpentry methods, each of my learners already has two post-it notes that they use to signal whether they are done with an assignment (green) or are stuck with it (red). In these cases, I ask them to use these notes to fill in their responses — one post-it note for the positive feedback, and another one for the criticism. It always works like a charm.