Hi all! I am a registered nurse with a 10 year experience in healthcare. I’m looking to pursue career working with data, perhaps data analytics. I would love to merge my clinical background with data knowledge.
Please give me some career advice on how to get started? What language should I be learning? I’m looking at the freecodecamp learning and it starts out recommending that I learn basic HTML, do I need to if I’m not interested in web development?
Thank you!
Python is a popular language for Data Analytics, as well as Julia and R (though I’m not the biggest fan of R).
FCC has some Python content coming, so that might be what you are looking for. However, the basic concepts of variables, arrays, loops, etc are the same in any language, and the FCC Javascript content is a good place to start.
I like to remind people that Data Analytics is about code + statistics. You can get yourself into a lot of trouble and come to incorrect conclusions if you forget to expand your statistics knowledge as well as your coding knowledge!
Most tech startups don’t have enough people from the business domain they’re working in, but would love to have more. e.g. they have a bunch of programmers who think it’d be great to solve some real-world problem, but they have few experts in that real world problem.
If you’re looking for work, I’d suggest getting in touch with (ideally local) startups working in healthcare. Tell them what you know, what you can do, and what you want to do (short & medium term … remembering that most startups are very short term). You might get a job out of it, you might get an internship, you might just get some contacts. Contact a few, see what happens. You’ll most probably have to direct your studies yourself but this might provide a part-time role that supports and helps direct your energies.
More generally, I think it’s a great field to get into and your experience in a specific industry like healthcare will be an invaluable asset. You’ll probably also find it really tough going from being an experienced expert in your field to being a novice, but stick at it!
Ignore HTML/css (I say ignore, but it’s always worth spending a few hours understanding what things are, but don’t get stuck in thinking it’s important for your future). Learn python and look for introductory courses in python programming, data analytics etc, and mathematics. As BobSmith said, learning basic programming in most languages is pretty similar so if you can’t find courses in python then javascript is a good choice, but switch to python before you get too deep.