I have started my final year of undergraduate studies, and this semester has already provided a fantastic view through the window to the world beyond school. As I solidify more plans for my near-future, I will consider incorporating information into these updates; for now, I will simply focus on life here at my university.
This is my lightest semester in terms of course-load, yet I've never been more busy. The busyness of my schedule can be attribute to holding the position of Treasurer for the ETSU Psychology Club and my university's chapter of Psi Chi, as well as President for my chapter of The National Society of Leadership and Success (NSLS). Especially with the NSLS role, I am committing considerable time to planning events and communicating with the organization's national office. All of my campus organization involvements are incredibly enjoyable, and I am looking forward to use opportunities to facilitate events to better my professional communication and presentation skills. All of my organizations are currently planning community service events, so I look forward to discussing those in further detail later in the semester. It is at this point that I can look back on my experiences with these groups and see how formational they have been, guiding not only my career trajectory, but efforts to connect with students and faculty to try bringing beneficial information to others while continuing to learn. There is no doubt that I will have even more of these impactful moments over the course of the next year. My Colloquium project this semester will be similar to - somewhat of a continuation, in a way - my project from last semester. In the spring, I was able to learn a considerable amount in the space of R programming; more details about this can be found in the April 2019 post. Over the summer, I worked on multiple research projects that helped me develop my R skills through exposure to a multilevel modeling project prior to the course I am now in mentioned last semester. Originally, I considered making my goal for the semester to use the little R knowledge I have to learn Python and practice with simple task automation projects. It became clear as I heard more recommendations from successful data scientists and began dabbling in resources for teaching myself about machine learning that I should focus with R and more fully develop a range of capability in the one language prior to expanding. That is why my project this semester is to officially start, in a more structured manner than my previous ventures, exploring machine learning at a conceptual level and use online courses that I have been perusing over many months to connect this knowledge to my R console. Any major product that comes out of this project will definitely have to be shared in posts for next semester, as I will mainly be working on my undergraduate thesis and a research paper in ETSU's Department of Management and Marketing. This would be an opportune time to describe my thesis because, as many of you may have guessed, it is a creative idea focused mainly around R coding while tying in my interest of helping people learn. I have chosen to keep this idea from most eyes or ears until I get the main project up on GitHub, links for which will be provided in a later post. I have lots in the works for the second half of this semester, and I promise not to ramble on about the list of ideas. Check back in around Thanksgiving to get the latest updates on life in the world of Jonah. As always, stay happy, my friends. -JD
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