I’ve completed two new elements of the DataCamp Associate Data Scientist in R career track!
Course
Project
Assessment
#17
Introduction to Writing Functions in R
#18
R Programming
#19
Exploratory Data Analysis in R
I have to admit that the elements of writing functions was completely new territory for me.
Even in my Graduate studies in Statistics at CSU East Bay, we didn’t delve very deep into writing functions in R.
And we certainly didn’t leverage inline CASE statements when writing code.
I’m really glad that I’ve gotten this level of exposure to writing R functions. Elements of my exposure to FORTRAN (90) from when I first enrolled at Chabot College and my recent years of SQL programming are coalescing with this course material.
The next sections of this career track are going to dive into Regression, Hypothesis Testing and Supervised/Unsupervised Learning.
Today I’m going to outline the courses, projects and assessments that I’ve completed at DataCamp as part of the “Associate Data Scientist in R” Career Track since being laid off by MERGE on 1-15-25.
The description of the “Associate Data Scientist in R” Career Track at DataCamp can be found here.
There are 22 courses, 4 projects and 4 skill assessments in the track. Thus far, I’ve completed 12 of the courses, 2 of the projects, and 2 of the skill assessments — but I will be retaking one of the assessments because I’m not satisfied with the quality of my submission, let alone the results. (Yes, I self-critique!)
Course
Project
Assessment
#1
Introduction to R
#2
Intermediate R
#3
Introduction to the Tidyverse
#4
Data Manipulation with dplyr
#5
Analyze the Popularity of Programming Languages
#6
Joining Data with dplyr
#7
Introduction to Statistics in R
#8
Introduction to Data Visualization with ggplot2
#9
Intermediate Data Visualization with ggplot2
#10
Data Manipulation with R *
#11
Data Communication Concepts
#12
Introduction to Importing Data in R
#13
Cleaning Data in R
#14
Exploring Airbnb Market Trends
#15
Working with Dates & Times in R
#16
Importing & Cleaning Data with R
(*) This is the assessment that I intend to retake shortly!
(Unsolicited endorsement follows…)
The great thing about the DataCamp platform is the hands-on practice and the immediate feedback with available hints. (Had this been an available or “required” resource during my undergraduate and graduate studies, I’d be a much better R programmer today!)
This blog is very rudimentary, and until I pivot to experimenting with all of the features of WordPress, it’s going to stay that way. 🙂
That said, I think my next post will be an outline of my academic credentials (read “preparation”) so that you, my readers, will have a better idea of where I’m coming from and how my work on this skill track fit into the larger picture of my overall career.
Now that I am “between jobs”, and I am committing time to upskilling for my next role, I believe there’s no time like the present to see where I am on this journey.
My approach is going to be introspective: I will self-evaluate where my skills stand along this “learning plan, treating it as a checklist, of sorts.
Rest assured, I do not have so fragile an ego that I cannot handle challenges to my interpretation. In fact, I welcome them! All that I ask is that you register for this site so that we can both have accountability for our exercise of Free Speech!
So, welcome aboard this journey! And whether you treat it as “train tracks” as Swami Chandrasekaran does, or as a “random walk” as I do, thanks for the company!
