The Precourse

The Application Process

The application process starts with a simple essay about yourself, why you want to join the program, and what qualifications you have that are relevant to the program as well the usual required information about yourself that any organization would want to know about (ie, your name etc,). The application is very pragmatic and straight to the point.  This isn't a college application and it shouldn't take much time.  Furthermore, there isn't a fee associated with applying.  Just don't expect the quickest responses.

After some time, you'll hear from someone at Zipfian Academy who will give you the application work to do as a test to see if you are qualified to be part of the program.  The work consists of some data analysis, a very complex SQL query which will take a lot of thought, some basic statistics, and some coding (from what I remember).

The only difficult aspect of the work was crafting the SQL query.  I just finished crafting numerous queries for a website but I even had trouble carefully making this query.

The Interview

There were two interviews which are both done on Google Hangout with a collaborative text document.  One was a coding interview which consisted of you coding in online textpad while the interviewer watches you.  The question was relatively simple and did not require advanced knowledge of algorithms but did take some thought.  The purpose of this interview is to see if you can code in Python and see if you can grasp basic programming skills like efficiency and algorithms. I've had interviews with many companies including Google and I had to say this was a very engaging and relaxing interview.  It felt very much like the run of the mill Software Engineering interview and not much else.

The second interview consisted of statistical questions and some questions regarding the data analysis during the homework for the application.  There were also questions on probability and distributions.  Some of the questions could be answered with counting but they all could be solved with a bit of critical thinking.  The purpose of this interview is to test the limits of your knowledge of statistics.  So you may feel incompetent near the end of the interview.  I had questions that I just could not answer and passed on them.  I'm sure those with a math or statistics background would perform much better then I would.  For those who felt like they did not do all too well, don't fret.  I performed poorly in this interview but was still accepted into the program.

The Precourse Work

The Precourse Work consisted of a multitude of assignments.  The most important assignments was the Python coding assignments and the SQL queries.  Most of the content will help you prepare for the program.  There's an introduction to Pandas and the other packages for Python.  There's a mini data analysis project and a lot of extra credit if you wish to go the mile.  The work takes about a few days part time.  I estimate about 20 hours if you really don't carefully go over the reading materials and maybe more if you do.

I started a week prior to the beginning of the program and ended finishing everything the night before the first day of the program.

Who am I and Why I joined Zipfian Academy

About Me 

I'm a Vietnamese American who came to the United States over 20 years ago with the rest of my family.  I grew up in Tacoma, Washington and spent the last few years of high school in North Lauderdale, Florida.  I joined the United Stats Navy as a Nuclear Electrican's Mate and become a Petty Officer 3rd Class before being discharged for medical reasons.  After leaving the military, I used my education benefits to attend Highline Community College, a 2 year school just south of Seattle.  I actually studied Engineering and Physics but changed to Computer Science when I transferred to the University of Washington Tacoma where I then graduated with my Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science and Systems.  

I'm currently attending the Zipfian Academy data science program in San Francisco.  

You can find me on LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter.  

Why did I join the Zipfian Program?

All of my academic interests are encompassed by data science...

I was originally interested in operations research, industrial engineering, and artificial intelligence. I loved the mystery and practical applications of artificial intelligence while operations research and industrial engineer tugged on my life mission of improving and developing better systems. 

The intersection or collage of all of these fields is data science.  I love coding, I love optimizing and engineering, and I love designing and developing intelligent systems.  Ergo, I love data science.

My background sets me up to do data science...

Most people believe statisticians or data analysts are the most closes careers to data scientists but I disagree.  I believe data scientists are simply engineers who design and develop abstract products.  A software engineer designs or improves software, a Civil Engineer designs or improves buildings, and a data scientist designs or improves intelligent systems.  The statistical models that a data scientist crafts are in themselves the products that we design.

I studied engineering for the first two years of my college life.  Most of what I studied was domain specific.  Mechanics and circuits but others were more general skills like using computational methods to approximate differential equations, using mathematical models to run simulations, and multiple integrals and using Excel for data analysis.  

The other side of my education was in Computer Science where I learned about algorithms and even more about computation.  I loved coding and will never work in a field that doesn't require it. 

Zipfian Academy Root

My name is Thang Tran and I'm currently attending Zipfian Academy.  I just recently graduated from my Computer Science program at the University of Washington with an interest in data science. Zipfian Academy is a 12 week program designed to teach and train students from various technical backgrounds.

This blog will be part summary and part critique of the program.  I'm sure a lot of curious prospective students for this boot camp are interesting in a more critical exposition of the program then the other blogs I came across. I may also direct potential employers to this blog so bear in mind as I may write about the gritty details of the program.  

Zipfian Academy actually encourages their students to blog during the program and I sure they have enough faith in their program to welcome feedback and critique.

The blogs will be organized into weeks and then also any other thoughts I would like to be encapsulated into another blog post.

• Why I joined the program
• Pre-course
• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Week 11
• Week 12