Intro

I’m still fresh into my career, don’t get me wrong. I have a lot of growing and learning to do. More lessons to learn and people to meet. However, I have been blessed to have had some phenomenal mentors over the last 10 years who have really poured into me. Internationally recognized athletic coaches, brilliant professors, and amazing managers who have all for some reason taken a liking to me and given me some fantastic advice and guidance. I hope this pays it forward a little bit. Below are some tips that have helped me in school as well as in my professional career. They aren’t in any particular order and they aren’t super fleshed out, but I’d be happy to go into a particular topic in more detail should there be a demand. Hopefully you find some of it relevant and useful!

School

Always take the harder class

In 2014 I enrolled in the University of California Irvine which was (and still is, I presume) a very rigorous school. Like any tough school there are difficult classes you have to take, but there are always ways to avoid this nuisance. You can-

Take the course with an easier professor.
Take a course which fulfills the requirement, but is by most accounts, easier.

or my personal favorite-

Switch majors so you don’t have to take the class (Yes, I have personally witnessed this).

My advice without exception is to always take the harder class. My reasoning is as follows-

You’ll likely have more options after taking the harder class.
You’ll likely learn more.
You’ll likely sharpen your study habits.
At least you’ll learn how to persevere.

Find good study habits

Don’t just study the way most other students study. Find the way in which you retain material the best and build on whatever process that might be. My first year of undergrad I didn’t have good study habits, so I did what all my friends did. I stayed up until 3am half awake with my scribbled flashcards fooling myself into thinking I was learning, but I wasn’t. I was wasting my time and my grades and overall learning reflected these poor practices. I had to figure out how I learned and created a system that worked for me. This included-

Learning the material before the lecture.

Normally, professor’s tell you what you’re going to go over each lecture. If this is the case I would pretend that there was going to be a quiz on that topic at the beginning of the lecture and try to go over everything myself beforehand. That includes reviewing the lecture slides, reading the chapter and taking notes, looking up alternative sources to try and understand topics that I didn’t understand. Basically, I would try and learn the content myself which made class a review and gave me poignant questions to ask during lecture.

Choosing study groups wisely.

Studying in a group is not a panacea. They can be a huge help or a huge burden, and you want to ensure they are productive as possible. This doesn’t mean that everybody has to be at the same level in terms of course material, but everyone does have to be at a minimum level. This means if you’re in an advanced physics class and go to a group study session and the group doesn’t know that Force = Mass x Acceleration (yes, I’ve seen this too) then this is not a productive study group for you. The inverse is also true, if you are the one who doesn’t know that Force = Mass x Acceleration then you also are in the wrong study group and either need to spend much more time on the basics by yourself- or more likely- need a tutor.

Studying in the morning.

The mornings are quiet, and everyone is asleep. There are no distractions and I can have a cup of coffee and not have trouble falling asleep that night.

Reading the textbook.

I remember when I was in undergrad (and grad school for that matter) it was the overwhelming consensus that reading the textbook for a class was a waste of time. As a result I didn’t do it and my grades sucked. Now, reading the textbook is usually my first course of action whenever I’m diving into a new subject.

Schedule your leisure time

Just like I schedule my study time, I schedule my leisure time as well. Keep your work time focused on work and your leisure time away from work. If the 2 start to bleed into one another you’ll get the worst of both worlds.

Career

Continuing education

If you are entering or are in the field of Bioinformatics/Software Engineering/Data Science you have just commit to a career that requires continual learning in and out of the actual job. Each new role will likely have different software they use for project management, new mathematical techniques for analyzing data is developed often, and new technology is released almost weekly at this point. So you will likely have to figure out the best ways of continuing to learn outside of traditional school. Here’s what I’ve done-

Audit courses at universities.

Most professors are pretty reasonable and care about the courses they teach and the students they serve. I’ve had great success reaching out to professors at local universities and community colleges asking if I could audit/sit in on their course regardless of what the university policy was. Obviously you don’t get the grade, but that doesn’t matter a whole lot because you only need the information. Many times I’ve been given course materials, been allowed to take exams, and even had assignments graded with the rest of the class. Now if you go this route it’s crucial to take the course seriously and all the way through. That means show up on time to all of the classes and prepare as if you were paying for the course. Not only will this allow you to get the most out of it but it shows the professor you care and respect their time. Not doing so will invariably result in the professor not allowing you to sit in on another course as well as not recommend you to other professors teaching courses you may want to sit in on.

Admittedly, this is a little more difficult at larger institutions. Professors may be a bit busier with their research, have a bit of an ego, or maybe just not care that much. But those professors are certainly the minority (at least in my experience).

Take free online courses.

I don’t know if I would recommend paid courses like Coursera, Udemy, or Skillshare. I’ve found that they are usually very introductory, don’t go into appreciable depth, and the certificate of completion you get is not worth a ton in the job market to say the least. I would recommend MIT Opencourseware and Stanford Online. These are courses taught by the best professors in the world with all of the assignments. That, along with the course textbook (which you can get online for free if you look hard enough) and generative AI tools like ChatGPT to explain topics at varying levels of detail make courses like this invaluable. I’ve taken linear algebra courses, statistics, computer science, and I am currently going through a class on probability.

Read books.

Technical books are such a fantastic resource. I would recommend An Introduction to Statistical Learning with Python by Gareth James, Daniela Witten, Trevor Hastie, and Rob Tibshirani. Elements of Statistical Learning by Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, Jerome Friedman. The 100 page Machine Learning Book by Andriy Burkov. Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python: Best Practices for Writing Clean Code by Al Sweigart. These are sure to get you on the right track. Read them and write about them if possible!

Evergreen advice

Always do your best

This hopefully goes without saying, but you should always, always, always do the best work that you possibly can. If it has your name even associated with it, you should strive for it to be the best work you can possibly produce. It may not be correct or it may have missed the mark, but shortcomings in technical skills can be taught and overcame. A lack of effort is something that will put off managers, peers, and everyone you work with and will ultimately be your downfall. Produce your best work even if you don’t think you are working on a project that is propelling you towards where you want to be, or working with tools you think are in demand. The industry is very small and word can get around quickly if you produce good work (and bad).

Say I don’t know with confidence

One of the best skills I learned in my graduate program was how to say I don’t know with tact. This has helped in so many different occasions and it helps others know that although you may not be familiar with a particular tool, software, or skill, you are competent enough to learn it. I have no problem saying I don’t know in my role or in interviews because I am very confident in my ability to pick up new skills quickly. If you’ve been in this field of Data Science/Bioinformatics even for a little while you will quickly hone the skills that make you great at learning new things and develop that confidence as well.

Of course just like in any field, some people can be quite arrogant. I’ve had encounters with hiring managers, recruiters, and peers that make you feel dumb for saying I don’t know. However, in my experience without exception the smartest people in this field have been the most charitable and willing to teach.

Be okay with not understanding!

In a similar vein to the last point, it’s okay if you don’t understand a concept! The subjects we frequent are amongst the most difficult to understand in the world. Linear Algebra is by no means easy and neither is probability, calculus, software development, or machine learning. Each one of these subjects has a concept that you will inevitably not understand immediately and that’s okay. That means you’re learning and pushing yourself! I remember the first time I learned about Docker. For the life of me I could not understand what exactly the technology was doing or why it was necessary. Is it a virtual machine? A virtual environment? What is a container? I was very confused for a long time, until one day I got a Raspberry Pi in and wanted to deploy an app on it and was wondering if the app would still work on the Pi OS like it did on my machine. Cue large cartoon light bulb appearing over my head. That’s just to say these things take time. Just stay consistent and let the nuerons find their way to each other so those synapses can fire.

Be kind and friendly

You don’t have to be an extroverted social butterfly, just be friendly when you interact with people. I am actually quite introverted. I like reading. Writing. Watching movies with my wife. Playing with my cat. Maybe enjoying a glass of wine or whiskey. I’m not a very social person in the least, but that likely won’t bode well long term. While you certainly can get away with being an anti-social hermit who is kind of rude and arrogant, you have to be very technically proficient to do so. And by very technically proficient I mean the best in the world at what you do. Unfortunately, I do not rank amongst that class and have to get people to like working with me a bit to keep me around. You probably do to. More concretely that means when talking to somebody learn small talk. Talk about the weather, ask how their morning is going. Ask if their dog still has that cone around their neck. Honestly anything at all. The conversations will eventually grow.

Don’t talk bad about people

I have had recruiters and hiring managers ghost me after giving me their word they would reach back out. I’ve had bad interview experiences (really bad). I’ve had very very bad managers, professors, and coworkers. I’m sure most of us have. It’s not great to just go around dragging their name through the mud. Just move on.

That doesn’t mean that if asked about certain situations you should beat around the bush. You should be able to give an clear and honest account of any negative experiences you’ve had should somebody ask and should it be prudent to discuss. Just make sure it’s charitable.

That’s all I have for now. I’m sure there’s more that but I would probably begin to ramble on. Hopefully this was helpful~