Thinking Crossroads
This story begins in 2018 when I was about to take my college entrance exam. The only thing on my mind was the journey to become a doctor. However, it was not achieved so I decided to become a gapyear student and made a year preparation for the college entrance exam the following year.
Never crossed my mind, it turned out that I was accepted as a psychology student in my uni (2019). Slowly, like it or not, I have to adjust the persona I’ve instilled in myself from a medical student into a psychology student. The journey was quite difficult, especially in the first year, but everything went smoothly. The change that was going on was requiring me to bury deep down my only dream and aspiration. Seeing myself become a doctor in the future, well, that will never happen and I have to be prepared to change the course of my journey — the journey is not over yet; it is about to begin.
Who said changing the direction of a journey is an easy peasy thing? There are so many obstacles that must be faced, including feeling like in the wrong major. Don’t get me wrong, my little heart still wants me to become a person who is to always be there, to help others, to become a psychologist.
But the journey wasn’t smooth either, it turned out that my fad to take part in an internship led me to new things, to become someone who works in the tech field/industry. The internship opened my eyes to the fact that world of work is very broad and each has its own uniqueness. I was given so many opportunities from where I did an internship, one of which was to become a data analyst.
Data analyst? What exactly do you need to do to become a data analyst?
That was the first thing that came to my mind. I didn’t know exactly about being a data analyst, all I knew was someone dealing with data — with numbers. Became a data analyst while studying psychology actually wasn’t really bad, the statistics class and all the transferable skills really helped me in a day-to-day as a data analyst.
Ever heard of what VUCA is? It basically stands for volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous; the acronym first introduced in the army is now widely used to many settings, including business and society. It’s arguably that one way to deal with VUCA is becoming adaptable.
Part of my journey in the data world and tech industry as well as being a psychology student can be considered as an image of VUCA itself and yet I managed to learn something unknown myself. I had to adapt to the situation by learning, such as, analytics tools and remote-working environment tools. Starting from Slack and Jira to SQL, Python, Google Analytics, and Tableau. These are some of the tools that I learned myself in order to survive, in order to learn.
We all know that technology changes the way of people learn, I take advantages of that. By simply click your browser and search anything on your search engine, boom, you got all the answers. At least for me, I taught myself to code, to read “data”, and to visualize.
A successful code in Python — indeed it looks very easy for most people, but a proud achievement for myself since I have no experience with writing a code. This also applies to other things, visualization for example.
Never in my life I really saw myself doing these things; I never thought that I could really do, and I guess it’s all worth learning. I think myself as a fast learner but I also am a short-term-memory(i-ed) person. I need to practice just as Ling Ling said — practice 40 hours a day. I have to think my way — to see myself explonentially grown, I dedicate myself to make every efforts worth making.
I’m something of a scientist myself.
— Norman Osborn
The journey so far has brought me to be who I am today, full of curiosity, versatility, and used to change. I managed to grow vast perspective about things, especially in developing myself. Investing in myself is the one thing I never regret and tired of doing, it’s always worth doing.
The desires, every setbacks are just fine, but I feel kinda lacked of mentorship and direction. Even though courses helped me to understand every basics and fundamentals, I don’t think I can rely on myself all the time. In this case, I really need to learn from the expert itself. This time Generasi GIGIH 2.0, program held by Yayasan Anak Bangsa Bisa & GoTo, really bridges me to achieve my need.
I think I just solved the learning barriers to achieve what I really want. Not mastering the data (as transferable) skills, but to fulfill my need towards it. Now I have my own talented peers and amazing mentors that came from many backgrounds! This opportunity really boost my learning pace for getting the data skillsets.
- Goals checked✅
- Motivation checked✅
- Sigma (I mean) Growth Mindset checked✅
- Self-learning checked✅
and now
- Mentor checked✅
As I just said earlier, I often feel like I’m learning something new every day. The feeling just came back! Yes, I want to bring the data skills into my scientific field — psychology. I believe psychology and data will be a very useful collaboration — to become a data hero, as well as being a hero itself for people in need. A bouncing; stepping stone to fulfill my wish to become a doctor in another beautiful and exciting way.
I still have a long way to go and it will be very possible to change along the way, but I am sure the provisions I have gathered so far will be useful in various situations. When in doubt, I shall either find a way or make one.
This story was written for Generasi GIGIH 2.0 homework assignment.
