Status Update
in Metis on Blog
Whew! The first month post-bootcamp was busy!
Woah. I got away from blogging once things got really busy towards the end of bootcamp.
I have some unfinished draft posts and I may go in and backcreate some posts I’ve been meaning to write. So at some point in the future, it may not seem so. But this has been a six week hiatus.
Because I may go into more depth with some of those posts on what happened in those last couple of weeks of the bootcamp, I’m only going to summarize that here. In essence, things got busy. The last project was very challenging in several ways. But, for the most part, I actually adhered to the idea of segmenting things per the guidance of the instructors… moreso than any of the other projects. For some queer reason, however, I had the idea it’d be easier once I halted work on the project and focused solely on the presentation itself. I needed a bit of free time because I had to start shifting my focus to some post-bootcamp stuff. But this wasn’t the case at all. In any case, we made it.
All of us had the same need to recover from the bootcamp… while aggressively working our contacts from the Career Day, etc. But I had one additional area to pursue - lining up more training. And this proved to be nerve-wracking.
What’s up here?
The nature of the Reduction-in-Force that affected me makes me eligible for some specific governmental benefits. There are actually a couple levels here:
A hasty, rough summary of these and how they apply to many like me would be to say that the former is to help people in industries which have been designated in decline. But the latter is for those whose jobs had been moved to another country.
Pursuing the first is easy because pretty much all you need to do is document your previous employer. It’s pretty clear whether that is or is not covered. But how to you prove your job went overseas? The trick here is… you don’t… your former company has to. This is just one part of the bureaucratic difficulties I’ve been enduring. I was very certain my job was shipped out. Why? Because I attempted to chase it. I had already assisted with some of the training of the group in Mexico that was taking over the work. It took a bit of legwork but I found the hiring manager who was going to oversee the work as they group that team. They responded promptly when I sent my resume. It was a brief conversation:
You’re perfect for this role. You’ve been doing what we’ll be doing. But the job is in Mexico City. No telecommuting. No relocation support.
And… though I didn’t ask, I bet salary would be adjust to Mexico City norms. So… yeah. I knew definitively where my job went. But… it took between three to four months for the paperwork to progress from my former company to the appropriate governmental agencies to me. This was a problem because with TAA/TRA there are some specific deadlines/timeframes involved. Specifically for my situation, I was supposed to be actively in training before six months after I first filed for unemployment.
I was able to foresee this bit of nonsense because of the people at the placement agency. Indeed, I never would have learned about any of these benefits were it not for these people. But they helped me to see the timeframes I should expect. This is why I jumped into the bootcamp when I did.
Nonetheless, I found myself with the challenge of determining what training to pursue. There is a bit of an oddity in that you have to have been accepted and enrolled with the complete training plan documented before the government will approve and issue the grant to pay for it. This puts a bit of a burden on the training agency. Some know how to roll with this. Some do not. I’d already been informed the most likely options for Data Science or Big Data were:
- Illinois Institute of Technology
- Depaul University
I had to agree. But, as I compiled supporting documentation for the government, I also researched bona fide Masters of Science in Data Science programs. Most of these are well outside the approved price range. However, I found one that seemed GREAT - University of Illinois. Their program is entirely online via Coursera. Sadly, though, they proved to be far too slow. I could not get their support to work fast enough to meet governmental deadlines.
Depaul has great programs. But… the problem is that they’ve packaged up individual programs. It didn’t seem likely that I could do several of them. And… sadly… though they do have some experience with these governmental programs, they also couldn’t work fast enough.
IIT? As everyone had told me, the woman overseeing the professional stuff knows very well how to work with this stuff. The trouble I had was that their coursework seemed too low level. This was balanced by how flexible they are. I am now essentially pursuing a custom plan. For example, the first course I’ll take there is on Recommender Systems. Sure, that was covered in the bootcamp. But this will be a chance to go into greater depth and get some practice.
I am now, once again, a college student. I year from now, I’ll have a professional certificate from IIT. And who knows… though I’ve not yet heard back from Illinois, they may accept me too. I’d have to string them along, likely starting later. In any case, it’s clear enough to me that I’ll be doing lots of training continually in this field, even if I land a job in the near term.
Now that this stuff is for the most part resolved, I can shift my focus back to other things… like this blog.