5 Feb 2023
Start of a new adventure - Masters in AI
2021, as Covid-19 and lockdown transformed our lives, I found myself feeling stagnant. A few years prior, after being overworked and burnt, I found a job which offered a better quality of life. The plan was to enjoy a 9 to 5 and then enjoy the magic of London, do some travelling and become a proud working woman.
Unfortunately, things did not transpire that way. I did manage to enjoy some events. However, with lockdown, things started to change drastically. People I highly admired left, the culture of the company altered and more importantly, I found myself with no clear direction. Whilst I wasn’t captivated by a gold star career, I quickly found my daily task repetitive and I wasn’t learning or developing personally.
At around this time, I was introduced to Microsoft Access by a colleague keen on data engineering. It isn’t by any means the best database software on the market but for us it was the only easily accessible software. I was captivated by how a software I had learnt almost 10 years prior could be used to automate mundane tasks and store information effectively.
This, in turn, opened the doors to the world of data analytics and data science. There, I found a new world. It yielded possible solutions to handling forecasts which I had been troubled by for some time. It also reignited my passion for maths and data. Having studied economics at undergrad, I had learnt aspects such as regression but coding was done through STATA which limited its utility in the wider world as opposed to the more accessible use of python.
This, like many, led me to do a myriad of courses and a plethora of projects. I also found time to read books on mathematics and data science such as Hello world by Hannah Fry and Humble Pie by Matt Parker. In doing so, I became intrigued by other aspects such as ethics and of the disparity of how technology was utilised in society.
I didn’t simply want to learn data science. I wanted to understand why on a fundamental level.
Why was it creating a divided world with FAANG companies capitalising heavily on it whilst others still used white boards and excel files to keep a track of key information?
Why do I have spell check when I type in English but no such feature when I type in languages such as Japanese?
Why did an algorithm feel that it should suggest predominantly individuals from what it perceived as my ethnicity and miscategorise me?
Looking for such answers, as well as questioning some of the dominant discourse on entering the world of data science, I began to entertain the notion of returning to university.
This was by no means an easy task. Unfortunately, universities do still predominately cater for those who have the freedom to study full time and for me, this was not was not an option. Living in London, opting for a university in travelling distance would entail a minimum travel cost of £3,000, excluding other expenditures. Universities outside the region would be more affordable but with undergraduate accommodation costing approximately £4,000, I needed a course which would offer distance learning. I also have other commitments which required an income.
Following research, I found a handful of universities which offered such courses. And in early Feb 2023, I received an offer from University of Bath to study MSc in Artificial Intelligence.
Lets find out what this new journey will bring…