Goodbye 2020🎄 - Issue 25
Best publications, gratitude, feedback, and upcoming subscription changes
Dear readers, this is the last newsletter of the year!
On this special occasion, I decided to change things a bit and share with you my mission, recent feedback and comments received from my readers, and a selection of the best content published in 2020. Also, I am introducing a few subscription changes in 2021 which will make this newsletter better and, hopefully, more useful and practical.
Data analysis is a challenging field, still emerging, and always transforming. Navigating through it is tough and exciting. I’m grateful to everyone who is reading my newsletter.
⏳ A little history
I started writing this journal for two reasons:
Bringing classic data analysis back.
As technologies have matured, they stop being a cutting-edge advantage and instead, become a competitive expectation for many companies. It forces analysts to focus on “how” rather than “what” or “why” in their work. I want to encourage and inspire my fellow data analysts to go back to the basics and enjoy genuine data analysis.
Bridging the gap between academic knowledge and industry requirements. I want to show what data analysis is or does “in action”.
Many years ago when I got my Masters, I had no idea what to do it with. I knew statistics but was failing interviews. I had no idea how to position myself or “get my foot in the door”. It was frustrating and scary. I was lacking the terminology, and keywords interviewers were looking for, and was speaking a language people didn’t understand (literally). Now, 10 years later, I'm getting the chance to interview some of the smartest candidates, and I can see that same journey in their eyes, as well. It doesn’t have to be that way. With my journal, I want to help anyone who's transitioning into data from another industry or academia to find the right path and succeed at interviews and challenges.
😍 What readers say
I’m honored to have readers from around the world with different levels of knowledge, experience, and across all industries.
Today I also wanted to share the learning journey of my youngest reader - Aaisha, a 14-year-old Muslim Homeschooler from South Africa! She is a bioinformatics and data science student. I love her passion for biology and science and the way she approaches self-study. Read her journey of self-learning data science.
🌱 This journal is growing
When I launched the journal six months ago, I had no idea it will grow that much. I have a full-time job, and it’s meant to be a little fun side project. But as it grows, I have to invest more into it to ensure I can present decent and appropriate content for my growing audience. I’m not a fan of “short bites” and don’t believe in easy hacks or tricks for analysis. Therefore, I have to put a lot of effort into writing deep dives, case studies, curating appropriate news, events, and selecting tutorials, internships, and programs to share with you. Moving forward, I plan to invest more time and heart into publications to keep bringing value to everyone.
In January, I am launching a paid subscription. Only paid subscribers will get this newsletter weekly. Free subscribers will now receive this newsletter only once a month.
Paid subscribers will receive:
Weekly SQL and Python interview questions, solutions, guidance
Deep dives and case studies
Data analysis projects examples and walkthroughs
A/B tests approach, real-life scenarios, and implementation
Insights from data analysts and data science experts who walk us behind the scenes of their daily work, and challenges, and share their learnings.
Interesting stories about how data affects people’s lives and how data analysts make a change.
Additionally, paid subscriber questions and support will be prioritized.
It will cost $50 per year, or $5/month.
You can cancel anytime.
And, you also can expense this! As you should.
If you are currently looking for a job, and can’t expense it, or can’t afford it, just email me and let me know. We’ll work something out. Hopefully, my journal will help you land a job (as it did for other readers).
Your support would mean a lot to me. And, it will allow making this newsletter better, more productive, and more useful.
🔥 The most popular publications in 2020 from Data Analysis Journal:
Data analysis
SQL
Data Science
Supervised machine learning — Binary logistic regression overview
Supervised Machine Learning — An Introduction To Support Vector Machines
Supervised Machine Learning - The Decision Tree Classifier Intro
Expert insights:
Checklists:
I hope you have a great end of the year,
See you in January!