Michelle Qu
Senior Data Analyst
4INFO
Milestones
My road in life took a while to figure out.
I originally pursued economics in college, both at UC Berkeley and Cornell University.
While at Cornell, I worked as a research assistant doing data processing.
That was the first time I'd worked in data analysis and I really enjoyed it.
I took a course in machine learning and learned that I was also interested in modeling.
I realized that data modeling would be the way of the future, and it combined my two interests.
Keep following my journey
Education
High School
Bachelor
Macroeconomics
University of California-Berkeley
Macroeconomics
University of California-Berkeley
Career
Senior Data Analyst
I deal with big data analytics and build models and visualizations based on that data.
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Science
Technology
Learning / Being Challenged
Day to Day
I wake up around 7:00 a.m. and go for a jog. I arrive at the office at 9:30 a.m. and I have a daily standup meeting at 10:30, so I'll try to have learned something new before that meeting; for example, I'll study a new model or algorithm that I can present at standup. Then I'll start my work; oftentimes that involves working on in-house requests from our product manager. In the afternoon, I'll have a meeting following up on my work for the day, then I get off of work at around 6:00 p.m.
Advice for Getting Started
Here's the first step for high school students
The most important first step you can take is to decide what you're really interested in, THEN start pursuing the skills needed. I had to take a wide variety of classes before I started to realize that data was what I was truly interested in, and then from there, I could start to take more and more courses that would focus in on that area.
Recommended Education
My career is not related to what I studied. I'd recommend this path instead:
Hurdles
The Noise I Shed
From Peers:
"You should move back to China; it's too difficult to find a job in the U.S."
