Be Your Own Best Resource
BY JIM THEOLOGES – DATA SCIENTIST
“I may not know the answer to every question, but I know how to find it.” That’s the personal mantra of an old coworker of mine and he was an incredible programmer. I wasn’t a programmer per se, but had to write a fair amount of code; the only problem was I had no formal coding experience.
Naturally, I ran into a lot of errors while writing code. I would often find myself at my coworker’s door asking for help. His response was always the same – he would send me a link to a Google search of my question. My frustration would grow each time I received that response. I knew he knew how to solve my problem. Why wouldn’t he just give me a direct answer!
Eventually, when I became more confident in my abilities, it finally hit me why he responded by only sending me a link. He wasn’t doing it to be malicious or because he was always busy. He was just showing me the way he learned how to fix his errors. He had to be resourceful in his job to solve problems, and was teaching me how to do the same.
As I progressed further in my career, I found that sometimes “finding” the answer isn’t an option. Sometimes you have to actually solve for it yourself. As my work became more complicated, I found that I needed to tap more resources. Many times asking a coworker for input, looking through historical work, or reading a book on the subject are all needed to solve a problem. And one of the most empowering feelings is being able to piece different sources together to get an answer.
As a Data Scientist at Elicit, my main task is to solve complex problems. Many times, these problems require work that may not be part of my core competencies. But as a problem solver, I have to be resourceful. I need to know where to find the answers needed to solve the problem. Sometimes it involves meeting with other Data Scientists, sometimes the solution can be found online, but sometimes it’s up to my own brain to figure it out. That’s simply par for the course for my line of work.
I certainly don’t know the answer to every question, but now I’m equipped with plenty of ways to try and solve it.
Be Your Own Best Resource
BY JIM THEOLOGES – DATA SCIENTIST
“I may not know the answer to every question, but I know how to find it.” That’s the personal mantra of an old coworker of mine and he was an incredible programmer. I wasn’t a programmer per se, but had to write a fair amount of code; the only problem was I had no formal coding experience.
Naturally, I ran into a lot of errors while writing code. I would often find myself at my coworker’s door asking for help. His response was always the same – he would send me a link to a Google search of my question. My frustration would grow each time I received that response. I knew he knew how to solve my problem. Why wouldn’t he just give me a direct answer!
Eventually, when I became more confident in my abilities, it finally hit me why he responded by only sending me a link. He wasn’t doing it to be malicious or because he was always busy. He was just showing me the way he learned how to fix his errors. He had to be resourceful in his job to solve problems, and was teaching me how to do the same.
As I progressed further in my career, I found that sometimes “finding” the answer isn’t an option. Sometimes you have to actually solve for it yourself. As my work became more complicated, I found that I needed to tap more resources. Many times asking a coworker for input, looking through historical work, or reading a book on the subject are all needed to solve a problem. And one of the most empowering feelings is being able to piece different sources together to get an answer.
As a Data Scientist at Elicit, my main task is to solve complex problems. Many times, these problems require work that may not be part of my core competencies. But as a problem solver, I have to be resourceful. I need to know where to find the answers needed to solve the problem. Sometimes it involves meeting with other Data Scientists, sometimes the solution can be found online, but sometimes it’s up to my own brain to figure it out. That’s simply par for the course for my line of work.
I certainly don’t know the answer to every question, but now I’m equipped with plenty of ways to try and solve it.
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